Most Days I Wonder What I'm Doing Here

Green & Bean started sometime in mid-to-late 2022. We launched online, and in March 2023 we began a 13-month pop-up shop in Annapolis, Maryland. Today is May 21, 2024 and we were supposed to leave at the end of April, but were granted an extra month's stay in order to get a new lease for our new space in Bethesda.

I have been told that the countdown sign is a little dramatic ~ exactly what I was going for :)

We currently do not have a new lease, our current one is technically expired, and I spent the day re-organizing the spare room in my house to fit 1,300 sq ft worth of inventory. In case you're wondering, my spare room much smaller than that ~ perhaps exponentially smaller ~ and it seems to have triggered an existential crisis or something equally dramatic and tragic.

Realistically, everything is fine. I guess we're taking a hiatus, but apart from that not much changes, seeing as you're reading this on our website. I don't intend for Green & Bean to stop, but it does feel incredibly insecure to not have a premises in 10 days. However, once we have a space, we can pick up right where we left off. More or less. What worries me right now is that I can't exactly say how long that's going to take. Inconvenient when I'm asked the exact same questions by quite literally any who breathes in my direction: what's happening with the shop? Any updates? Where are you moving? When are you opening? Why are you leaving?

Let's be completely clear: yes, I am complaining. It's constant, it's overwhelming, and now that the plan that we were hoping would work out didn't work out it feels like everything is imploding (it's really not, but it does feel like it which is kind of the same thing). At this point I don't even know what to say: our spot didn't work out, and now we're indefinitely online-only until we're not ~ I'll keep you updated? TTYL?

It's about as reassuring as the phrase "more or less". This is also like Plan C, so, I'm quickly running out of alphabet.

I truly am grateful that people feel invested in something I created out of thin air, but it's incredibly exhausting to constantly be asked a questions I can't answer and not feel pressured to have it figured out. I don't. I just turned 27, I can barely tie my shoes most days, and people keep laughing when I say the longest job I've ever held was 8 months, and how it genuinely felt like forever.

Trust me, I want this to work out more than anyone because clearly I cannot function as a member of society in any other capacity. I'm not complaining because I'm being asked questions ~ it's just upsetting to see that people are genuinely sad that we're leaving, and I can't even say for certain when or where we're going.

That being said, it does particularly bother me when people automatically assume that we're leaving because the shop "didn't do well" or that "rent's high in this area" and "hard to compete with Amazon, eh?" ~ it just makes my ego, and my eye, a lil twitchy. I don't enjoy that people automatically assume it was because we couldn't. Feel free to ask questions ~ I'm actually pretty upfront when total strangers ask me invasive questions like how much I'm paying for rent and is my business failing or not, and why. Nosy is fine because, like, same here buddy (maybe not 'whats-your-rent' same but hey).

Assumptions, however, make an ass out of u and me and I'm sure you've heard too so it must be true.

If you must know, we're leaving because we had a pop-up lease, and it's over. I wanted to test the concept of this "ethically sourced, eco-conscious boutique" that had more-or-less disconnected items spanning multiple categories, and no clothes. It actually also says "A pop-up shop" on our window, which does imply pretty explicitly that we aren't going to be here permanently.

We chose a pop up becase on paper a concept like this might not really work, and the first few months I could see how there was a disconnect between what we were offering, and what people wanted from us. We ended up in Annapolis because there happened to be a pop-up opportunity there, and 13 months is the perfect about of time to get a feel for retail foot traffic.

Then again, Annapolis isn't a particularly eco-conscious area. In fact, the town center that we're located in does not recycle, apart from cardboard. This does include the residents, offices, and commercial businesses, though I don't know if the residents even recycle cardboard (it's doubtful). *Obviously, we took home our recycling, and compost, which is the bulk of our waste. We take trash out maybe once a month, usually a little less, and most of it is tape we pulled off the cardboard boxes we shred for gifts.

Our delivery boxes get reused for online orders or shredded for gift boxes

I digress, but it did and does annoy me daily because I'm powerless do do anything about that, but it's a great example of how unsuited Annapolis was for an "ethically sourced, eco-conscious boutique".

So what worked?

90% of the people who came in were immediately awed by the eclectic, vibrant mix of items they'd never seen by brands they'd never heard of and thought of how great of a gift it would make for so-and-so. We quickly realized that we were a badly marketed gift shop.

A gift shop that specializes in sustainable, ethical goods is so much easier to explain because you can stop at "a gift shop" and it still tells people how what need we fulfill in their lives. Need a gift, come find us. Much easier than "need a ethically sourced, eco-conscious product that's objectively nonessential, come find us". I literally had a woman tell me she doesn't care about being eco-friendly at all, she just thought that hair claw in the window was cute.

Honestly, I was glad she told me, because that's when I realized that virtually no one cares about the products they purchase. It's changing, slowly, but at the moment, it's hard to fully base a business around other people's morals. That being said, we can run a business on our morals, and market to fit our customer's needs.

it's not that no one cares about eco-conscious products, it's that most people don't 🙃

Once we focused on fulfilling that everyday need people have, eco-consciousness and ethical sourcing became our pillars. It's our identity, it's the way we do things, it's the standard we hold ourselves to, but first and foremost we need to have a great birthday present for Mom, or a be able to put together a thank you gift for colleagues who always send you new business.

No one has ever once walked into our shop because we have compostable stickers with the brand they never heard of on it. Maybe one day?

But, people often leave charmed that we instinctively giftwrap items if it's mentioned to be a gift. A lot of people who have come in, have come back. They like the space that we've created and how it's inviting, relaxing, and fun to look around. The best compliment I've ever gotten about the shop ~ and it's odd to have gotten it more than once ~ is that looking around our store feels like being on vacation. Things are novel, new, and you want to take your time and enjoy it.

aw, how sweet

Anyway, when people tell me why I'm moving with a question mark at the end of their sentence, ("you're moving because rent is high" is still a statement even if ended it with the tone of a question mark) I usually tell them that we were only ever a pop-up shop, that this was all an experiment, and that it actually did well enough that we feel confident enough that the next space we take we're going to be in for at least 5 years.

I'm a well, actually kinda gal, and I can't help but correct someone when they assume things about me and my little shop that are erroneously negative (feel free to erroneously assume positive things about us though, not gonna correct you there).

We're moving, first and foremost, because I live too far from Annapolis for this to be permanent, and I have no intention of moving to Annapolis (sorry?). Even if Annapolis, we never would've stayed where we are currently, because I don't like that (amongst other grievances) I was told that all shops have to have the same operating hours, when it simply isn't true.

When I pointed it out by listing other tenants' operating hours one by one, I was told that it's actually because I'm a pop-up, and pop-ups have to have those specific hours. Then, there was another pop-up, with much shorter duration than 13 months, that was able to choose their hours.

I don't like being treated unfairly (who does), and rather than demand to be treated like a professional who pays rent like the other professionals that pay rent, we'll pay rent to someone else.

I fully understand that as a first-time business owner occupying a small space for a short time, my complaints have no weight compared to my national chain neighbors. It is what it is. I have enough perspective to understand worse injustices and atrocities are being done both close to home and far away so it's not something I felt deserved time or energy fighting when we have the option to just move, be closer to home, and carry on.

We're leaving because as much as we loved being here, as much as people enjoyed having us there, not being given professional courtesy, and the understanding that I'm in a position where I don't have to be treated that way feels powerful to me because it feels free. It's part of why I never last long at jobs.

Fundamentally, I always understood that there's always another bullshit job around the corner and if I don't like this one, I can find another. I'm applying the same philosophy for shitty landlords. Except, in this situation, they're not paying me, I'm actually paying them, and while they can certainly get money from elsewhere easily, I don't have to stay in a situation where the property management is actively uninvested in my business, but wishes to exercise arbitrary control over me such as not allowing us to have an sidewalk sign for our first few months (we were initially told that it would be "ineffective and unsightly" and that I should return the chalkboard sign I bought).

I pointed at all of our neighbor's signs in response a couple weeks later, and was then allowed to keep it.

*In British* It's ghastly!

Though, I will say that it was nice of them to let us stay an extra month, but it wasn't for free so it wasn't that nice.

This entire speil has been a tangent that needs to end, but in my defense I never once used my journalism or creative writing degrees, so I think it's to be expected. Also, blogs are tangents. They're essentially public diary entries. I know this because I feel better now than when I started.

Ultimately I'm using blog posts to boost our SEO and hopefully drive web traffic. This is what I've come up with. Truthfully, I'm stunned you made it this far. Surely you must have skimmed.

I'd whip up more gift guides, but it takes a lot of neural connecting end brainpower that I just don't currently have the capacity for. My cute little shop ceases to be this Sunday. We start packing Monday. I'm happy for this chapter to come to an end, I enjoyed every moment of it while it lasted, and my god I hate not knowing what's coming next.

Stay tuned to find out what's coming next.