SHOP TALK

Get To Know Your Local Shopkeepers In This Monthly Spotlight Series

October 1, 2026

Meet Joe Ferrari: Owner of Tend Greenpoint

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.


Q.Tell us about Tend and what it means to help people “live with plants.”A. We're about eight and a half years old now. I opened the shop with this wish to help outdoor gardeners in Greenpoint because there are a lot of backyards and all these little side streets and stoops and balconies and patios and stuff like that. We rapidly reintroduced ourselves with more and more house plants. House plants are a major part of our assortment along with ceramics.We always had this goal of being a place where customers were going to find great healthy plants, with people to talk about them, who could also help them with them. I think a lot of times people see photos, whether it is in a magazine or on Instagram or some social media, of a beautiful room with a beautiful plant, but what they don't know is that the plant in the picture is purely there for staging and cannot live where it is placed.We're trying to guide people away from plants as furniture or an art piece and back to a plant as a living thing. It doesn't need as much attention as you think it might need, but it does need your attention. And you do need to get to know it in order to have the most success.

Q. What should people think about when choosing plants for their space?A. We always recommend light first. Go by your light. And by light we mean rays of sun. Your plant wants to see the sky wherever it lives, whether that's the sun or clouds or whatever.The other thing is water always comes second. People want low maintenance plants. They just really mean they don't want to have to water it a lot.Light, then water / maintenance. And then from there it goes to shape, size: are you looking for something that's going to tumble down, grow up, be tall, fill a window?

Q. What might surprise shoppers about running a plant shop?A. We have a ton of SKUs, a ton of product. Keeping the pots stocked and the soil stocked — that's not hard. The hard part is keeping the plants alive.I used to work at the Gap for a long time. We can't just come in every morning and perfect-fold all the t-shirts. We have to look at the plants and see if they need watering, do they have any pest pressures, do they need pruning, are they getting the light that they need? We can't ever not check on the plants. The garden in July and August needs to be watered every single day — front to back, side to side. In the winter we don't have to worry about watering the garden. It's just a different life depending on the season.

Q. What should outdoor gardeners be doing right now to get ready for winter?A. Now's the time to start taking stock of what worked this season, what didn't work. Make a note of that so you don't buy it again next year. Try something different.Also taking stock of what is surviving, what's thriving, and what kind of conditions it's in to get it ready for winter. If it's a perennial plant, you can leave it outside. You want to keep it in a sunnier spot. Prune it if necessary.If it's something that you never really transplanted and it's outside and it's in a tiny pot, now's a good time to plant things either in the ground or into a bigger pot because there's enough time for their roots to grow out before winter sets in.

Q. What about houseplants — anything people should do differently this time of year?A. If you're new to your apartment and you haven't lived through winter, take stock of your light situation. This beautiful sunny window that you had for summer — is there a building that the sun is going to tuck behind once winter comes around? Should you move your plants to a different window? It's a good time to get ready to slow down…slow down on watering…slow down on fertilizing. You should still water your plants, but they're not going to be growing voraciously. Also you're going to be spending more time indoors. Get ready to nest.

Q. What inspired you to open Tend?A. Living in Greenpoint is what inspired me to open the store. I had a front and side garden in that apartment. And so all spring, all summer, all fall, we were out in our garden.My then-boyfriend, now husband sat on our front stoop with our dog and read. I was always in the garden, so we knew all of our neighbors. We knew the names of almost everyone on our block. We watched kids grow up. That garden was really sort of an anchor.I had my past life in corporate retail and e-commerce, working for brands like the Gap and Liz Claiborne and then Kate Spade for almost 10 years. I had all this industry knowledge and this garden passion that I grew up with and had this beautiful garden in Greenpoint and I didn't really have a lot of places to shop in Greenpoint.I finally just had to hit that breaking point one day where I was done with corporate retail. I took a sabbatical from my job. I went to New York Botanical Garden for their landscape design summer intensive, which I highly recommend for anyone looking to know anything about plants or gardening, and I decided to use my knowledge and my passion and start Tend.

Q. Is there anything else you want neighbors to know about Tend?A. Aside from plants, pots, soil, all the tools you need to do your basic small scale gardening, we offer services like potting. When you're buying a plant, we'll pot it for you, whether that's because you're buying a pot with it or you brought a pot in.
We try to keep our business within the shop. We don't do any outside services like plant consulting or garden design or anything like that. I'm here for the retail aspect of it.We do love to help as much as we can, as far as we can, but my ethos really is: we want to empower you as the shopper or as the plant owner to know what you need to do and to be able to have a successful plant life.

September 1, 2026

Meet Meg Costello: Hair stylist, Trichologist, and Owner of Coz Salon

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.


Q. Tell us about you and your business.A. My name is Meg Costello. I am the owner of Coz Salon on Manhattan Avenue. I am a hairstylist and a trichologist. We are a unisex salon. We offer haircuts, color, extensions, keratins, as well as trichology practices or hair loss consultations — that's what a trichologist does, so we do focus on that as well.Our ethos is really based in community, client experience, and the overall well-being of our staff. We really strive to be a place for everyone, and we strive to be a place of safety. Hair, vanity, beauty — it can be scary for some people. Salons can be intimidating, and we try to not be that. We want to be welcoming, we want you to feel comfortable, everyone is welcome here. We're on the second floor, which is really cool — it's just a stairway up. So we call ourselves a little treehouse. It's private, but exposed. It’s cozy, and we're here to take care of people in more ways than one. We want to make sure that we're making you look good and feel good. Our tagline is "Good Hair Good Times," and that is really what we strive to do — bring a smile to people's faces and make them feel good about themselves.We're a collective. We do a lot of community outreach, a lot of work with non-profits, a lot of in-salon events. We have one coming up in October that I'm excited about: aura reading pictures.


Q. How did you get started and what brought you to Greenpoint?A. We opened in 2009 on Greenpoint Avenue at Franklin with our original owner — our original name was The Parlour Brooklyn. That was when Greenpoint was really beginning; there weren't a lot of businesses yet. There were a lot of female-owned businesses opening up, and I was the original owner's assistant. I opened the business with her. As we grew, we grew with the neighborhood. In 2020, I bought out my business partner, and we rebranded as Coz. That was an opportunity to take everything we learned from the pandemic and from how the community had changed. We became more grateful, and more aware of how we had to shift and change. But we've maintained the same ethos basically from the beginning until now: rooting yourself in where you are, caring about the people next door to you, and being interested in what's around you.


Q. What do you love most about being a small business owner in this neighborhood?A. I think it's the love that people have for this neighborhood, even through all the change — the people that have been here from the beginning. I have clients that have lived here since they were kids. Everybody that has lived here, even if they've left, it's still such a part of them. I think it's because it's this little hamlet at the top of the borough. We're kind of preserved in this cute way. I just love the community. I love connecting with people, I love the care that people have. I love that we haven't become too corporate yet. There's heart here, and I think that's what's at the bottom of everything — it's heart. I've never experienced that in another neighborhood.


Q. What does "shopping small" mean to you?A. It means so much, especially right now. It's a tough world politically, socially — there's a lot going on outside of our reach. But the concept of a small business, and the way it cares for people in the community, shopping small is participating in that. When you're shopping small, the owner of that business knows their employees, knows their employees' families, cares about their employees — and on top of that, they care about every person that walks in the door.To shop small means to make an impact directly on your neighbor. That's powerful. Small businesses are the thread, the core of our city. As a hairstylist, I saw the impact of the pandemic on people who weren't connecting with anyone else — sometimes we were the only person who touched someone, who spoke to them face-to-face, in a week. It made me realize we can't be alone. We have to interact with each other in these face-to-face, connective ways, and shopping small does that on a deep level.


Q. As the original founder of Shop Small Greenpoint, how did it get started and how do you see its evolution today?A. It all began with an employee who came to me right after the pandemic and said she wanted to figure out a way to do a Pride event. We started Greenpoint Pride — an opportunity for a lot of neighborhood businesses to come together and raise money for the LGBTQ+ community. We got a lot of people involved, and it got written up in Greenpointers.From that, someone reached out and said, "We love what you did with this — you should push this into something else, like a retail crawl." So it went from Greenpoint Pride to the Retail Crawl to Shop Small Greenpoint. It was myself, my manager Danielle Hartnett, and Jack from Drama Club. We just started coming up with ideas, and it grew so fast and became so popular that it became bigger than what I could handle as a hairstylist and business owner.When I met Perri [Salka] from The WonderMart, and she just takes everything and runs with it and does such a good job, I was like, "Thank God — do this! You're going to take this further than I ever could." She's done it with such grace. I can't wait for what's next.


Q. What's your favorite thing to do/eat/find in the neighborhood (outside your own shop)?A. My favorite thing to eat, and it's been this way since 2009, is a chicken tostada from Acapulco on Manhattan Avenue. It's a Mexican deli, and shout out to those women who take my order two to three times a week, they're amazing. But as a more general, exciting, vibrant part of the community, Marathon Day in Greenpoint is my favorite day of the year. We're basically the halfway point. It was actually one of the first dates I went on with my husband, watching the marathon at the Pulaski Bridge. Every year we hold a marathon party at the salon. We look right out onto Manhattan Avenue, we get our donuts from Peter Pan, our bagels from Baker's Dozen, and all of our clients get to experience it. You can't walk a block without running into somebody you know. Everybody in the neighborhood, all the businesses, get into it. That's definitely my favorite thing to do here.

August 1, 2026

Meet Janine Sopp: Ceramic Artist and Director, Owner, Founder of Clay Space

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.


Q. Tell us about you and your business.
A. I'm a ceramic artist and the director, owner, founder of Clay Space, a ceramic studio in Greenpoint. We have two entrances to the building — the front entrance is on Calyer Street, and that's our public entrance where students and anyone who lives on that side of Greenpoint tend to come in. We have amazing instructors, we have kids programs. On the back side of the building is the private 24/7 membership entrance. That allows members to come in at their leisure. Many people have day jobs, they come in at night and work. Other people are doing their craft as a business. They're running their businesses, somewhat like an incubator, out of our facility. Those small businesses rely on our staff, our equipment, our ability to deliver our house-made glazes. We provide a foundation on which they can build their small business.


Q. How did you get started, and what brought you to Greenpoint?
A. I moved to Greenpoint in 1994. I had an almost 3,000 square foot studio space and was doing my own production until about 2006, when I realized being a production potter was not economical in New York City. We were founded in 2006, and then we built our new space during COVID and opened on Calyer Street in May of 2021. Little by little, I developed the space offering various levels of membership.


Q. What do you love most about being a small business owner in this neighborhood?
A. I'm really, really sensitive about what it takes to run a small business, and having respect for people that have already developed a community or already developed a brand, and where they situate themselves. I'm a small town girl at heart. I grew up in Syracuse, New York, where you kind of know everybody, and so I like to cultivate that feeling of a small town within a big city. And I think Greenpoint has done an incredible job. I hope it continues to do that.Leadership is such an important responsibility, and running a business with compassion, with empathy, with care, with, you know, paying attention to the numbers, but also paying attention to people's well-being — that takes a special set of skills. And I feel like it's something that I've developed in my life through organizing around social justice issues and so forth. So I feel like those qualities translate really well into running a small business. And building a community environment where everybody feels welcomed. It's not always easy, sometimes things cross a boundary and I have to say no to things, but it's an incredible experience to bring a team on board and work with a team who also values those qualities.


Q. What does "shopping small" mean to you?
A. So not only are we a small business, but we're nurturing and supporting other small businesses within our four walls. And then those businesses can go and do shows or sell their products to other small businesses. So there's a very holistic approach that we take around supporting a small business within our small business. It's sort of like a nucleus, and then a larger, and then a larger [ecosystem]. So our students, our members, and then the oversight of the business. I realize that my reason for being on the planet goes so far beyond making pottery and ceramic art — it really is about cultivating and nurturing a community of makers and of people who need this in their lives, and it's only been a positive, incredible journey over the past five years.


Q. What's something about Greenpoint you wish more people understood?
A. McGuinness Boulevard has separated the two sides of Greenpoint. It's such a major thoroughfare, and historically, the east side of McGuinness, further away from the waterfront, has always been industrial. The building that I'm situated in, and a lot of the businesses that are developing, are on the other side of McGuinness, and it's harder for people to realize what's happening over there. A lot of people walk by and have no idea that we existed. Bringing the pedestrian traffic over has been a challenge. But when people discover us, they're really excited. So I'm hoping that more small businesses like mine start to situate themselves as a destination.


Q. What's your favorite thing to do, eat, or find in the neighborhood outside your own shop?
A. Because I spend most of my waking hours in Greenpoint, I'm always looking for food that is affordable, because eating out is expensive. If I'm going to eat out — when my daughter visits, she's a real foodie, so we like to explore a little bit more. One of my go-tos is Dar 525. It's on Diamond and Driggs, and they do Middle Eastern really well. And then closer to home, if I need a quick delicious take out, I'll go to Kimchi Market. But one of my favorite secrets in Greenpoint is Valle Luna, which is a taco truck that stations itself on Greenpoint Ave just outside of the G train exit off of Manhattan Ave. They do the best veggie tacos I've ever had. We've invited them to come to our building during Greenpoint Open Studios, and they sell out every time.

July 1, 2026

Meet Perri Salka: Owner and Curator of The WonderMart & Lead Organizer of Shop Small Greenpoint

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.


Q. Tell us about yourself and your business.
A. I'm a native of New York State and I've been living on my own in New York City for 20 years now. I've been a shop owner in Greenpoint since 2022, running and curating The WonderMart on India Street. And in 2024, I took over as the lead organizer of Shop Small Greenpoint — I'm the one-woman show behind that little community program now. The WonderMart is my happy place - a really special gift shop. I like to refer to what we carry as the real New York souvenir, because everything we sell is made or designed in New York State. You really can't find another shop like this in the city. Everything is small batch, independently made, and we support a little over 300 local makers and brands on our shelves. It's a really magical place — a great place to get a gift for a loved one or just a little treat for yourself. I run the shop along with my husband and we're just a little family-owned situation. I've been in business since 2019 as a whole, and then got my first brick and mortar in 2022. It's been a journey, but a really good one.


Q. What do you love most about running a shop in Greenpoint?
A. First of all, I don't live in Greenpoint — I live in South Brooklyn — and to find a shop space in North Brooklyn felt very unattainable for most of the time I was searching. But then, very serendipitously, I found a location that was so perfect for my shop, and it just happened to be in Greenpoint. And it's interesting because I'm half Polish, so it was really kind of cool to have a shop that is also representative of the Polish community. It felt like coming home in a strange way, even though I don't live there. I always joke and say I don't know what's in the water, but everyone in Greenpoint truly is so into shopping local — getting out there, having a great day, bopping around town. You don't find that energy in every part of the city.


Q. What does "shopping small" mean to you?
A. Being intentional. I like to encourage people to look local first. Chances are what you need is actually not that far away, and it's good to get your steps in! And you'd probably be surprised…even my own shop — it's on a side street, not on one of the main thoroughfares in Greenpoint…even four years in, we still get folks that are like, "I live a block away, I had no idea you were here. But my dog decided to pull me down the street this way today and that's how I found you." There are so many opportunities to shift your perspective and just go on a little walk and enjoy your neighborhood. I think shopping small really helps you do that.


Q. What's your favorite thing to do, eat, or find in the neighborhood — outside your own shop?
A. This is the hardest question, I think, because I'm always inside my shop. I don't get a chance to enjoy the neighborhood to its fullest as just a consumer. I wish I could, because there are so many amazing places to eat, drink, and shop in Greenpoint.
When I think about it, I really just think about where I would want to go if I had a free hour before I opened my shop. And I think honestly I would just go to Transmitter Park. I love walking out on the jetty — you get such a beautiful view of the city. It's just so dreamy to be reminded of where you are and what you've accomplished by looking out at the beautiful city skyline. I will also give a shout out to Little Tiffin. They are an amazing little Thai restaurant right on the corner of India Street, just steps away from my shop. They feed me two to three days a week. As a shop owner, I'm always forgetting to eat, and so to have them right there, ready to go — easiest pickup order of my life every time. I've gotten to know the owners and they're so sweet, a husband and wife team. I highly recommend it!


Q. How did you get involved with SSG?
A. I participated in the neighborhood crawl after I opened my shop — and my sales doubled that week. I was hooked! I thought, this is a really vital program. So when the original founders had to step back, I was the only person available and willing to carry the torch forward. When I took it over, I really had a bigger vision for what it could be. Previous to that, it was just a bi-annual event — in between, it was not a very active program. I wanted to turn it into an annual, really effective program for shops to have resources and visibility all year long. I'm excited to use the newly launched Shop Small Greenpoint newsletter as a vehicle to share what's going on in the neighborhood from a small business perspective, and help plug people into the importance of shopping small and all the amazing places to support in Greenpoint. There's a lot more to come. I can't speak on some things yet, but there are some fun things coming down the pipeline — stay tuned!!