Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cary Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Cary thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

Before opening The Victorian, I didn’t have a prior history of a family-run business but I am fortunate enough to have started the company with my wife, Libby. Working side-by-side with my partner has its challenges but the good definitely out weighs the bad. She’s the heart and soul of this company and we wouldn’t be where we are today without her. Working with my wife / co-founder has given me the opportunity to never be alone when making business decisions and we can pick each other up when in stressful or scary moments. We’re actually expecting our first kid early next year, so our small 2-person family business will soon be more. While we don’t have the typical generations-old family run business at the moment, who knows, maybe our kids will one day want to carry on our first generation family business.

Cary, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Cary Smith, an Atlanta area native who grew up with a passion for art. While attending Georgia State University and pursuing a degree in Photography, I met Libby Hockenberry and years later we starting dating. During one of my first trips to her apartment I was amazed with all of the houseplants she had set around her space. It was my first time really seeing that in someone’s home. She developed a love of plants from her mom who taught her how to keep these plants alive. I quickly gained interest and, with Libby, would spend free time visiting various nurseries which started my own collection.

While traveling, we would notice locally owned plant shops in various cities with a focus on house plants. They stocked plants that weren’t seen or available in Atlanta at the time. We decided we wanted to introduce Atlanta to these cool varieties and wanted to strive towards sourcing the coolest plants in the world. We felt like Atlanta was missing a specialty plant shop like all of the amazing shops we had visited in cities like Portland, Seattle, Asheville, and more. We started The Victorian Atlanta intending to pop-up at various markets to sell our product and get our name out. We created an Instagram which showed what we wanted to offer and shared some of our personal plant collection too. Our intention was always to provide quality plants that you couldn’t find easily in big box stores as well as education about those plants.

Before we could attend our first market, the Ponce City Market store Citizen Supply reached out and asked if we wanted to sell our plants full time there. Without hesitating, we said yes. That was almost 5 years ago. Citizen Supply was a kind of flea market in a way – they had spaces for local makers as well as offerings from name brands to help anchor the store. The opportunity we were given at Citizen Supply is a large reason for our success. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We steadily grew that space, building our customer base and edging our physical shop out more and more. Once we out grew the space, we were given our own, stand alone location at Ponce City Market.

After opening our Ponce City Market location in 2020, we opened our second location in June of 2021 in East Atlanta Village. This new location features a small coffee bar inside that our friends Bellwood Coffee run and operate. We always had a dream to offer coffee and plants and Bellwood seemed like the perfect folks to ask to run a coffee bar inside our shop.

Operating out of our two locations, we offer more than just in store shopping. We put a strong emphasis on education offering one-on-one plant care tips to all of our customers as well as workshops, Greenterior Design Services (our comprehensive plant styling and install service for home and office), and Green Thumb Services (our detailed plant care service offered to our Greenterior clients). We also offer in store potting services and sell our hand mixed soils specifically formulated for indoor house plants as well as curate an extensive line of pottery sourced from both handmade and small batch artists around the country.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Its no surprise that the pandemic made us pivot in ways that we didn’t anticipate. With so much uncertainty at the beginning, we didn’t know what to expect. It quickly went from a curiosity of where things would go to fully closing down for several weeks. My wife and I knew we couldn’t wait it out so we quickly took photos of our inventory, updated our website, and transitioned into a full time delivery business and online retailer. Thankfully, with people stuck at home, they felt a need to spruce up their homes with plants. The orders were steady and we spent most days driving around the city delivering plants and pottery. We were able to keep a couple of our employees staffed and they helped us get our little shop running while we navigated the pandemic. During this time we also moved out of Citizen Supply and into our own space at Ponce City Market. Once open, we had lines almost everyday as the plant industry experienced a boom unlike anything ever seen before. We’re so thankful for the support shown to us by our community during that time. It was a scary time for small businesses, and we’re fortunate to have made it through the hardest of it.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

My wife and I both had full time jobs when we opened The Victorian. She was a bartender, working a full nearly 8 hour day at the shop, then turning around and bartending until 4am or later + freelancing in the floral industry. I worked in the film industry working 12+ hour days and filling in at the shop on nights and weekends. Because we believed in the business and loved what we did, it never felt overwhelming to us. Eventually we knew that the shop needed our entire focus and we slowly transitioned out of our other jobs to fully focus on The Victorian Atlanta.

Contact Info:

• Website: thevictorianatlanta.com
• Instagram: @thevictorianatlanta
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thevictorianatlanta/