Business owners Tippie Tippens and Lauren Williams gathered in Church Hill this summer amid a dizzying mix of growth and disaster. Retailers have launched their respective brick-and-mortar stores – Kind miscellaneous goods and dottir — in June at 2509 E. Broad St., the first physical location in Richmond for both stores.
Tippens, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, operates Kind Hearted Goods based on a co-op shop model, selling products that are environmentally friendly and have a social impact. Tippens founded her first business, The Good Shop, in New Orleans 10 years ago. After deciding we wanted a second location with a more stable climate, we debuted another location for The Good Shop in June 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina’s River Arts District. A month later, Hurricane Helen hit the city.
“My car was wrecked and I was stuck there,” Tippens said. The store was one of 10 out of hundreds in the area that survived the floods, but with no running water, no rent relief and essential tourism suspended, Tippens knew she couldn’t afford to stay, she said.
After the storm, Nikki Price, co-owner of Proper Pie Co. in Church Hill and a childhood friend of Tippens, offered to lease space in a building she owned on the same block to Tippens. Tippens moved from Asheville and began looking for a tenant to join him in the high-rise building.
Williams, who has lived in Richmond for 12 years, built Dottir, a Scandinavian-style clothing boutique, on the lower floor. Before this summer, Dóttir was running an online boutique and pop-up store, but Williams was “desperate to find a space.” Unable to secure a suitable location, he briefly considered quitting the business. But then Tippens found Dottir on Instagram, connected with Williams, and rented the basement space of 2509 to her.
Dóttir is pronounced “daughter” and refers to the Icelandic tradition of adding the suffix – Dóttir, meaning “daughter of”, to a woman’s last name. Our store carries women’s apparel, jewelry, and household items. “I wanted to bring something timeless and versatile: the effortless elegance that is characteristic of Scandinavian women,” says Williams, who is of Norwegian descent.
Kind Hearted Goods features products from five small businesses, including soy candles and reusable floral beeswax wraps decorated with the “Burn the Patriarchy” label. The organization, which is certified as a B-Corp, uses non-plastic packaging and donates a portion of its proceeds to nonprofits like Blue Sky Fund and She Will Fight.
Williams and Tippens said they feel supported by Church Hill residents and Richmond as a whole. When it opened in June, hundreds of people came to shop and eat pies catered by nearby Proper Pies.
“Everyone who lives here is proud of this area and wants to see businesses succeed in the same way,” Williams said.
Source: Shopping & Style – richmondmagazine.com
