Over-The-Rhine’s Featured

Between their degrees in Organizational Leadership and Public Relations, Jasmine Stone and Dominique Peebles are co-owners of “Featured,” a new storefront in Over-the Rhine.

Featured is a shop where local artists, crafters, and designers have an opportunity to sell their items. “The business operates on small businesses or individuals placing their items,” says Stone. These artists provide paintings, jewelry, wooden rustic signs, monogrammed items, etc. The store also provides customized items, like pets, children, and adult clothing. A lot of people, nowadays, go online to purchase items, but the customers that go into Featured, love to see the items in the store in person before buying them. “We have a little bit of everything,” Stone says.

Over-The-Rhine has been a great location for their shop. Over the past five years, Stone and Peebles have watched the area “develop into a great space where it attracts all different types of people,” she says. There are people who have lived in the area their whole life, or have moved to Over-The-Rhine from suburban areas to be in a downtown setting.

“With our business revolving around different types of crafts, we wanted to have a diverse set of customers that would be around,” she says. “That’s why we picked Over-The-Rhine, because of the diversity that’s there. And also we wanted to contribute to the economic aspect of helping Over-The-Rhine to continue to develop.” Featured depends on small business and individuals placing their items into the space.

Stone and Peebles’s shop has received a great response from the community surrounding it. Featured has even started offering monthly classes, like painting, crafting, etc. They enjoy “sharing the talent that we have within our shop with those in the community,” Stone says. Also, in the future, they are looking to expand into areas outside of retail, like food. “Something we’ve been working really hard to do is have a Featured kitchen. It may be where local chefs can come in and cook a meal, or where we could have all different kinds of local food products.”

Stone has enjoyed seeing her and her partner’s dream idea come to life. She enjoys working one-on-one with artists, as well as finding new artists for the space. “I love going out there, curating and seeing, ‘What type of talent do we have in this community,’ meaning within the Tri-State area,” says Stone. “Then seeing, ‘How can we help this business do better?’”

She believes that Featured is a unique addition to the Over-The-Rhine community because of the way that they source their art. The main goal of the business isn’t to earn a million dollars. “I mean, obviously, we want to be sustainable, but the only way that Featured is successful is by making other businesses successful,” says Stone. The ultimate goal for Featured is to open additional shops around the tri-state, preferably in Kentucky and Indiana where there are large amounts of people.

To learn more about Featured, visit them at http://featuredotr.com, on Facebook or Instagram.