Verdant is Kansas City’s newest plant-lovers dream. The shop’s beautiful aesthetic and amazing customer service will leave customers feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
Before even entering the shop, located in the Crossroads, Verdant provides a comforting scene of beautiful plants along the sidewalk and an intimate seating area for two. With plants filling the storefront’s large windows, you can’t miss the shop. The mystique of the white walls and carefully placed decorations draw in the curious wanderer.
Chentell Shannon, the owner of Convivial Productions, a ceramic wares company, created Verdant with the goal to merge her ceramic wares company with local plant growers. Verdant is also a gift shop. The store sells items such as the ceramics made at Convivial, locally sourced plants and locally made greeting cards. Verdant also sells locally sourced flower bouquets that fit perfectly into their varying sizes of vases.
Verdant replaced YJ’s, a former grunge coffee shop and snack bar that supported local artists in many facets before their closure in 2019. It was also a popular place for Shannon to visit as a way to destress, and it has now become home to her newest business venture.
In an interview with Startland News, Shannon said, “I just feel a lot of nostalgia toward that space and we feel honored to be able to take it over and try to hopefully make it as loved as it was and make it as functional as it was.”
Within Verdant, Shannon tried to conserve some of YJ’s old looks, keeping one of the walls a dark, grunge-looking green that appears worn but gives the shop a feeling of home.
The locally made greeting cards sold at Verdant feature hand-drawn flowers for most occasions. Shannon’s brother-in-law, who is an illustrator, created the greeting cards and the mural along the shop’s back wall. To reinforce the feeling of home, Verdant asks customers who buy a greeting card to fill it out and send it in the mailbox they provide. They call it their “greeting card program.”
“We want people to connect with the thoughtfulness around gift-giving and not just click-in, click-out, spend some money and you’re good to go,” said Kate Matsch, store manager of Verdant.
The cards are blank on the inside, leaving plenty of room for creativity and imagination to run free with the help of the shop’s pretty view.
Verdant also has a candle refill and flower bouquet program. As part of the bouquet program, customers receive a punch card. Once they’ve purchased ten bouquets and had the card punched ten times, they receive another for free. Their candle refill program allows customers to bring in their empty Convivial-made candle vases, and get them refilled for only $15, allowing them to continue to reuse the same container rather than creating waste.
The customer service and attention to detail are amazing at Verdant, going as far as to offer tea or water to customers who pass through. They hand wrap everything very nicely with their logo-printed paper and information cards on how to care for whatever plants customers buy.
All around, Verdant is bound to be a new staple within local businesses in Kansas City, worth return trips just for the warmth of the shop and the level of detail put into everything.
