At the beginning of last year’s holiday season, locally owned book and plant shop Monstera’s had just reopened its doors after a fire next door forced them to temporarily close.
The road to rebuilding the heavily smoke-damaged book shop space was a taxing one, but one that owner Kate Wieners said at the time was filled with community support.
What she didn’t know yet was that the fire wouldn’t just mean starting over in her own space; it would mean growth. Specifically, growth into the former Torreador Mexican Cantina space where the fire started.
When the Mexican restaurant decided not to reopen, Monstera’s took the opportunity to double its space. If all goes according to plan, then the book and plant shop will unveil the expansion later this year.
Monstera’s is expanding into 7926 Floyd St.
- The shop is expanding its space just off 79th and Floyd streets in downtown Overland Park.
- The space is near the Studio 79 and Encore clothing boutiques.
- Pending renovations, Monstera’s aims to finish its new expanded space by the beginning of this year’s holiday season.
Monstera’s hopes to use the space for more events
Even before the restaurant fire, Wieners said expansion had been on her mind as the shop bumped up against its spatial limits.
“It felt like we were starting to kind of hit capacity in this space, especially on the really big days; Indie Bookstore Day, (farmers) market days,” she said. “It just felt like people-wise, we were at capacity with being able to comfortably move in the space.”
The turning point came when the landlord let them know that the restaurant next door decided not to reopen. The opportunity came for Monstera’s to expand without actually leaving the downtown Overland Park space where it got its start.
“It was like the perfect scenario because we don’t have to move to get that additional space,” she said. “We get to stay in this area that we’ve already invested in. The community has invested so much in this store, and so it’s great that we just get to stay and continue doing the same with more space.”
Rather than operating as two separate spaces, a new 10-foot opening in the wall in between will allow customers to move freely between the two spaces.
In the new space, customers will find a continuation of the bookstore, but with more flexibility. More of the shelves in the expanded space will be movable, allowing staff to reconfigure the floor quickly for events like book clubs and craft nights.
“The goal is to just continue the same cozy, homey feeling that we have here on the other side,” Wieners said. “But everything will be easier to move on the other side, so that we have more space for community events.”
There will also be some new additions in terms of inventory next-door — driven, in large part, by customer demand. The expansion will allow Monstera’s to add a dedicated early teen literature section, aimed at roughly 12- to 14-year-old readers.
“Families are a big portion of our customer base,” Wieners said. “So (young readers) are a big focus of ours.”
Monstera’s opened in the spring of 2024
This year marks the locally owned bookstore’s second year in downtown Overland Park.
During its short time in downtown Overland Park, Monstera’s has seen its ups and downs — from the fire and the resulting closure to new business neighbors and temporary construction during the transformation of the nearby Overland Park Farmers’ Market.
Through it all, Wieners said, the bookstore has steadily found its community. On busy weekends, she’s enjoyed the “small-town” feeling of seeing regulars bump into one another among the shelves, catching up as they browse together.
The goal of expansion is that those regulars will have even more space (and time) to do just that.
“Our customers have started to become close friends with each other too,” she said. “It has become such a gathering space for people. To be able to have more space for meeting and hanging out and having more community just feels really great.”
Want more local business news? Local pet retailer Brookside Barkery now open in Prairie Village
