New Wildflower location opens in Newbury Park
Jan. 6, 2024 marked the grand opening of the Wildflower Boutique on South Reino Rd, Newbury Park. Saturday’s opening party consisted of fresh donuts being served in front of the store, in addition to Starbucks coffee, the store’s next-door neighbor. The event even offered permanent jewelry, raffles every hour and refreshments all day long.
Ellen Green, co-owner of Wildflower, remarked that the event was a big hit, and one of the busiest days the team had seen. “We ran out of merchandise, even our backstop. We were completely wiped out, which was an amazing problem,” Green said.
Green and co-owner, Lisa Lipthay, had been searching for a new space in Newbury Park for a long time. “The location we were originally at was quickly changing and declining, so we knew we had to make a move,” Green said.
Larkin Patsch, senior and ASG vice-president, is the social media marketer and retail assistant at the new location in Newbury Park. Patsch described the benefits of the new location as a place that allows people walking by to discover the store on their own. “Our new location allows people who don’t even know about our store to pop in while they are waiting for their coffee or about to run into CVS,” Patsch said.
Although Green and Lipthay were unsure whether opening a new location was the right thing to do, the first five to six weeks brought in faces both old and new. “It was always our desire to be in a center that had traffic, had life, had people walking and the young kids coming through. And we didn’t have that where we were,” Green said.
They obtained the spot next to Starbucks in November, and closed their old location within about a week of the opening. “We only had a very short span of time from closing the original location to moving in,” Green said. The team received extensive support from the community, loyal customers, family and friends, as well as local businesses like Cronies, who lended a hand for the opening.
“Our only goal right now is to kind of just grow this location,” Patsch said, “We are starting to put out all of our stuff for spring and we just expanded into plus sizing a little bit.”
Green feels that Wildflower is more than just a job to her and values the community around it. “Wildflower is really just an extended family of our own, it’s a wonderful thing,” Green said.
