Minneapolis, MN
Milestone for Kobi Co. as it celebrates 2 years at brick-and-mortar location
MINNEAPOLIS — A young business owner is about to celebrate a milestone at her downtown Minneapolis store. Kobi Gregory will soon mark two years in her brick-and-mortar location downtown, after starting “Kobi Co” during the pandemic.
From the outside of her storefront on S. 9th Street in downtown Minneapolis, you can smell the goodness awaiting you inside.
A space helping people create moments of self-care.
“If you are looking for a little bit of warmth a little bit of love and a lot of vibes we got it here,” said Gregory.
Gregory was a 17-year-old high school student when COVID 19 hit. Forced to live life online, Gregory struggled like many young people did.
“While I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression and just new feelings coming about,” said Gregory.
Gregory and her mother, Tasha Harris, had just finished taking a candle making class together.
It inspired them to start a business.
“Working on these candles and Kobi Co really helped me come out of whatever I was in,” said Gregory.
Gregory and Harris began selling their product at local markets and street fairs. Mom quit the corporate job she had for 20 years and began securing partnerships. After three years of working off tabletops, they made this downtown Minneapolis retail spot a reality.
WCCO
“I would not be able to do it without my mom or without the fact that this whole thing is about loving yourself and taking care of yourself.”
Each candle comes with its own soothing sounds to set the vibe.
“The music was a huge component of my self-care practice which is why we were so excited about adding them to the candles,” said Gregory. “Spotify QR codes and so that’s how we connect our playlist to each and every one of the candles they are all different curated towards each and every theme and scent.”
It’s not just candles. Kobi Co. sells bath bombs, salts and room sprays in their signature scents.
“Champagne scents, floral scents, we love lemon, jasmine all these different scents that we have.”
Mom and daughter, both from born and raised in Minneapolis, have care for community integrated into the foundation of this business.
“Giving back is super important to me,” said Gregory.
Kobi Co offers scholarships to young BIPOC women, and a portion of sales created from the Black Lives Matter collection, goes to families affected by gun violence.
“Just the amount of love and recognition that we’ve received in a short amount of time and that we’ve been in business really blows me and my mom away.”
That hard worked helped land national attention for this local business. Both Essence and Cosmopolitan magazines recognized Kobi Co.
Kobi Co also offers workshops where people can make scents unique to them. Gregory and Harris celebrate two years in the downtown location this spring.
A packed Target Center was howlin’ Saturday night. Fans started showing up hours before the game started decked out in team colors.
While the Timberwolves have a tough task, fans are not defeated.
“Series doesn’t start till the road team wins, so we’re still in this thing,” smiled Kaleb White.
White drove over an hour to be amongst all the Timberwolves and watch what he hopes to be a win. The team might be trailing in the series, but businesses in the area are winning big.
Inside Gluek’s Bar and Restaurant, it was shoulder to shoulder, a boost owner Dave Holcomb says is needed.
“For us we live on events, these are extremely important,” Holcomb said.
He’s expecting to nearly double what they’d normally make on Saturday night when a game is not on.
“Basically, the Olympics for us and we want to keep it going,” Holcomb said.
The latest Minnesota sports news can be found here.
If it seems as if commercial architecture has been stagnant for a while, you might be right. For most of the 20th century, styles changed every 10 years or so, rolling through the big cities first, ending up on main street later.
The baby boomer generation saw the biggest changes. In the immediate postwar era, downtowns were characterized by old brick buildings with some classical details, but from the 1950s onward, everything built was modern and simplified. The boomers also were familiar with the exuberant kitsch and button-down corporate modernism of the 1950s and ’60s, the mirrored glass facades of the 1970s and the post-modern classical shapes of the 1980s.
The zoomers — a generation born between 1997 to 2012 — grew up with those styles, as well, but they weren’t there to see them new. They were the existing order, a fait accompli, just like the prewar buildings had been for the boomers. It was someone else’s streetscape. Of course, they know what the IDS Center is, but they have no memory of the sunset poking through the girders while it was under construction, or watching the excavation for the Metrodome.
So it goes with every generational shift. Nothing new there. What makes the boomers different is that the smaller details, the interesting characters, the ordinary commercial architecture of their era, are vanishing rapidly, and they’re the only ones who remember them.
Here’s a sampling of familiar streetscape characters that boomers might recall, while zoomers might find them utterly baffling.
Fotomats promised one-day service on developing film and also sold film rolls. (Star Tribune)
Ask a boomer what they were, and you’ll have a prompt answer. The outdoor kiosks were the little yellow huts, the size of toll booths, usually found in parking lots. One could drop film to be processed into photos there, and pick up the prints later. Fotomats started to appear in the late 1960s, and disappeared in the late ’80s — competition from in-store labs and the rise of digital film did them in. The buildings with oversized roofs stuck around for years, and repurposed, until the lot was reused for housing. That was the fate of the Fotomat in Dinkytown at 4th Street and 15th Avenue SE. Some were just removed because they were empty and impeded traffic.
Ask a zoomer about one, and you’ll get blank looks and shrugs.
The Weatherball issued forecasts from atop the Northwestern National Bank building and was a prominent fixture on the Minneapolis skyline. It was erected in 1949 and came down in 1982. (Randy Salas/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
The entire baby boomer generation will have to pass from this Earth before people stop lamenting the loss of the Weatherball. It stood atop the Northwestern National Bank Building from 1949 until it was toppled by fire in the great Thanksgiving Day blaze in 1982. Today, it has been gone longer than it was around.
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