Meet Joel Holiner, M.D. | Owner and Operator, M.D. Antiques

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joel Holiner, M.D. and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joel, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I’ve collected antiques for 40 years and love them. I kept bringing more and more antiques home. My wife repeatedly said that you can’t fit any more antiques in the house. I had antiques in my office, in my study at home, and in my children’s houses. My wife eventually suggested that I just get a space where I could open a store, where I would be able to enjoy my passion and hobby in a useful way.

I have operated my own Psychiatric practice at Medical City Dallas for the past 40 years. As I was walking through Medical City Dallas hospital one Saturday, I noticed that there was a retail space there in atrium A that had been open since Covid. I had the epiphany that this could be the place for my store. I approached their executives with this unusual idea of opening an antique store in a hospital, where we would be able to serve the medical community as well as the broader community. It would also be a relaxing place to rest and take in beautiful scenery for people that are either taking breaks from work, or here for treatment, or here visiting loved ones who are receiving services. The hospital considered it for about a week, and came back to me and said “let’s do it.” We’re here to service the community and it’s consistent with our vision to do that, so lets try it. It’s the only antique shop in the country in a hospital and hopefully it will be very successful.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I never really wanted to be a salaried employee. I always wanted to have my own business and grow and be creative. My psychiatric practice started out as one doctor, and ended up bringing on other physicians, nurse practitioners, physician associates, and therapists to grow a business. I hope the same thing can happen with our antique shop. We can start out small and grow into bigger and bigger and expand our reach nationally with the capability of social media and online sales.
I’ve always believed in hard work and that luck comes with hard work and falls into place if you are diligent and provide the best service you can. I always want to put the client’s interest first. Even if something is more financially ruminative and advantageous to yourself, if it’s not in the best interest of your client, it’s not in the best interest of your business and you don’t feel good about doing business that way. And it’s a good model for your staff. If you’re honest and ethical and you’re serving your clients and patients and customers, and you set that tone from the top, then that becomes the model for how your entire business operates. In our antique shop, we price things fairly, we price things to sell, and we want our clients to have the best possible quality for the money spent. We offer our inventory at prices far less than comparable items found on premiere sites and shops. We are able to pass that value onto our customers while still running a successful business because of the diligent scouring of the market that we do in order to acquire valuable items at excellent prices in the first place. So our model is that we have traded the value of time, which takes a lot of effort and knowledge, rather than capital, which would be less time consuming but cost prohibitive when building an inventory. My team is the absolute best in Dallas. I have been antiquing for 40 years, and I am helped by a decorated interior designer with 55 years of antiquing experience. Luckily for us, we love antiquing. It’s a passion.

There’s always ups and downs in every business. There are terrible times and there are some great times. What separates a successful business from one that’s not as successful is being able to weather and not give up during the rough times. In my practice it would have been so easy to have given up. I had times when doctors en masse left, one after another, and it becomes hard to carry on. You have to just keep going and have confidence that things will work out. It hasn’t always been easy. Businesses are always challenging. But I don’t give up. I believe in the product and the team and the concept.

I’ve always worked a lot and that’s always sort of been a given. But I try to spend as much time as I can with my family. When the kids were young I would try to go to every one of their sporting events and school events and I was able to work my schedule around that. So its important to try to have that balance. But on the other hand, it was a teachable lesson to my children to show them that hard work and having reliability and consistency is important. Doing what I say, and meeting my promises is important. I try to be good to my customers, patients, and business, along with being there for family and being present with the kids. I think its still okay to work hard while doing right by your family and friends.

I love what I’m doing. I wanted to be a psychiatrist since I was 15 years old. I went to medical school to be a psychiatrist, I have loved my career. Part of why I enjoy being in my office so much is because I have a lot of beautiful antiques there and it’s a beautiful environment to be in. I love being in my office, enjoying my surroundings, enjoying my patients and my coworkers. It is common for me to work 7 days a week, between my practice and the antique shop. I really enjoy both very much. It might be harder to work for something you don’t love, where it would be challenging with less reward, but fortunately, I love both my medical practice and my antique shop, so I’m in business.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We would go on a big tour of the wonderful museums in the area. We go to the Nasher, Dallas Museum of Art, The Meadows, as well as the Kimball and Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. Along the way, we would eat barbeque at Terry Black’s in Deep Ellum, or Goldee’s BBQ in Fort Worth.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout to my wife Wendy. She always has been supportive and 100% behind me in any ventures that I do. She’s a very independent woman, and that allows me to have more time for my medical practice and it was actually her idea to open up the antique shop. She’s been a great partner for the past 35 years and I couldn’t have taken as much care of my patients or antique business without her love and support.

Website: mdantiquesdallas.com

Instagram: m.d.antiques

Image Credits
David Nevolo