'This year has been a rollercoaster'.
In January of this year, owner of Irish lifestyle store
The Kind Sheelin Conlon announced she'd made the difficult decision to move her business exclusively online, as the building housing her Fade Street store was turned into a hotel.
This was before the energy crisis and rising produce costs resulted in the closure of countless businesses in Dublin and beyond, but we were sadly all too familiar with the phenomenon of popular Dublin shops, bars and cultural spaces being closed to make way for hotels.
Fast forward nine months and in some sorely needed positive small business news, The Kind is set to reopen as a physical store.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CkGH7UBPpUl/
After winning the Champion Green Readymade Retail competition, an initiative offering one business a €50,000 retail opportunity, The Kind will return in its physical form in a pop-up shop in Blackrock Village Centre.
The competition which received almost 100 entries offers the chance for a small business to expand into a retail space, providing a shop location worth €21,550 provided free of charge by Aviva Life & Pensions on a six-month rental licence, Shopfitting advice and equipment, valued at €5,000, supplied by fit-out specialists, Roccul as well as free parcel-sending for a year within Ireland, from An Post Commerce, to support online retailing, along with a free direct-mail campaign, worth €10,000 combined.
Previous Readymade Retail winners include Irish design brand, Jill & Gill, and Ambr Eyewear.
The Kind will open in Blackrock Village Centre in early November.
Header image via Instagram/thekind.co
READ NEXT: The Spongebob Musical is coming to the Bord Gáis this summer
