Fleurish Grounds plant shop has partnered with Flow Koffee and Kombucha and Poppy’s Favorite Vintage to create a space with a little something for everyone.
From an online shop on Instagram, to a garage shop, to a Madisonville storefront, Fleurish Grounds will now be operating out of Newport’s old Monroe Market building.
Christine Kim started to romanticize the idea of a coffee and plant shop combination when she lived in Bangkok in 2010 and visited a small coffee shop that held the owner’s collection of plants.
“I thought it would be interesting to have an urban jungle in a coffee shop,” Kim said. “I was a wedding photographer, and I wanted to fade out of that. In 2020 I had the idea to do a mobile coffee shop, plant shop, and then that turned into an Instagram shop then the garage shop.”
Fleurish Grounds was initiated as an online plant shop through Instagram, where people could place their orders and go pick them up. Once Kim realized that people were interested in her idea, and with things being shut down during the pandemic, she began running her shop out of her garage in Madisonville, OH.
Her shop continued to gain momentum, and in Sept. 2020, Kim opened her storefront in Madisonville. She ran her Madisonville location until Nov. 2021, when leasing issues caused her to move out of the building.
“The Madisonville situation was so sudden and so sad,” Kim said. “One day, we will ‘Lebron James it’ and come back.”
With only a month’s notice to get out of the Madisonville location, Kim quickly found the next step for Flourish Grounds.
“My friend introduced me to Rhys from Flow Koffee and Kombucha in the month we were closing our store. We were like ‘wholly smokes’ it’s perfect,” Kim said. “We knew we wanted to double our space, and the building has so many windows. We knew we wanted a similar vibe to Madisonville. We didn’t want to be in a strip mall or overdone areas that were saturated with new businesses. I feel like we found the sweet spot here.”
Flow Koffee and Kombucha owner Rhys Watkins will be moving his business down the street, and the two companies will share the space. Fluerish Grounds and Poppy’s Favorite vintage will be on one side, and a quick walk through a large entryway brings you into the coffee shop.
Having coffee be part of the business has always been important to Kim. She had what she called a coffee corner at her old location due to the small space not allowing for a full coffee bar. Now Fleurish Grounds is in collaboration with a fully operating coffee shop.
In the two months between moving locations, Urbana Café in Cincinnati allowed Fleurish Grounds to set up shop while they renovated their Newport location.
“We’ve been really thankful to them,” Kim said.
In April 2021, Kim partnered with an old friend from her days in the wedding industry Brittany Hale, to bring Poppy’s Favorite Vintage on board and sell vintage clothing out of the plant shop.
“I got bullied into it in the best way,” Hale said. “I had curated a collection for me, and I would dress my friends. I took a few items to Christine, and she said, ‘why don’t you have an Instagram.’ It wasn’t until Christine bullied me into it. She created my Instagram account for me. Then I did a pop-up three weeks later at the old location.”
Poppy’s Favorite Vintage has collaborated with the plant shop ever since the pop-up.
Hale sources all of her clothing from estate sales, peddler’s malls, and auctions.
Every Monday, Kim and Hale visit the two large greenhouses in Cincinnati that source plants from Florida and Arizona, where they hand-select the inventory for the shop.
“It doesn’t matter if there is rain, snow, or ice we’re there every Monday. It’s pretty cool; Mondays are our favorite days,” Kim said.
When you visit Fleurish Grounds, you can find everything from easy to take care of snake plants, ZZ plants and Pothos to medium care level plants like Hindu rope plants.
Other little trinkets in the shop are books, stickers, accessories and more.
Eventually, Kim hopes to move operations back to Madisonville and open her own coffee shop by Fleurish Grounds. Kim, Hale and Watkins look forward to the next chapter until then.
“We’re really excited to be here,” Kim said. “It’s been very welcoming; lots of neighbors are stopping by asking about the opening.”
The new location at 846 Monroe Street in Newport opens Saturday, Feb. 19, at 11 a.m.