This Columbus woman gives former Visitor Center a new life supporting local providers

A Columbus woman is opening a new shop selling only products by local creators and producers in the former Visitor’s Center on Front Avenue.

The Peach Shoppe owner Rachel Kelly will offer a variety of clothing, jewelry, accessories, prints, stained glass artwork in the store. There will be space for food items in the shop as well, Kelly told the Ledger-Enquirer, particularly Georgia peaches when they are available.

Peach crops across the state have struggled this year, she said, but Kelly was able to ensure that the shop would have the fruit available for the opening.

“This is called the Peach Shoppe & Co.,” Kelly said. “So, we’ve got to have Georgia peaches in here. I even call them my little peaches.”

Everything sold in The Peach Shoppe will be sourced from local providers that Kelly refers to as “makers,” she said.

Kelly plans to offer ad space for local service providers and keep up to date information of events and things to do in Columbus.

She will be working with Visit Columbus, GA to gather information for customers, said Peter Bowden, president of Visit Columbus. The organization has worked with other businesses to distribute information, he said, and The Peach Shoppe can work as a kind of unofficial adjunct to Visit Columbus.

“Both locals and visitors will have a good experience with what she’s offering,” Bowden said.

Local creators who need a place where their customers can safely pick up purchased items will also be able to make use of lockers located in The Peach Shoppe. Kelly believes she can help people avoid meeting up with potential strangers in parking lots or other places to complete a sale.

A grand opening for The Peach Shoppe & Co. will be held July 1 at 11 a.m.

“I want to walk in here and feel like this is home,” Kelly said. “When they live here (I want them to feel) like this is Columbus. And people that don’t live here, I want them to wish they did.”

The “Co” in Peach Shoppe & Co.

Kelly wanted her business to be something new and exciting, which led to her thinking of a way to build her business while helping others build their own.

Her love for the creative community in Columbus gave her the idea to bring people together to create one shop, Kelly said.

“So that’s what the ‘& Co.’ is,” she said. “It stands for collaboration, community, Columbus — all of the goodness included into the Peach Shoppe.”

Kelly wants customers to be able to look at the products in the shop and recognize the people who made them from school, work or a casual acquaintance.

When potential makers reach out to Kelly to collaborate, she checks that they live in Georgia and how local to Columbus they are. Sometimes she asks them to tell her a fun fact about the city. Then she considers the products they are selling to make sure that makers are not overlapping too much.

“I want everyone to succeed,” she said. “And I feel like the best way to do that is to have a little sampling of all types of products.”

The Peach Shoppe is currently working with 23 makers including Custom Cake Studio, Swinehearts BBQ and WSC Candle Co. There are also makers who will provide crocheted items and earrings along with local authors and artists who will be selling their work in The Peach Shoppe.

On the white floor in a back room of the shop, Kelly has had all of the makers she’s worked with, along with friends and family to have a visual representation of the collaboration. She wants the makers and other business owners that she’s working with to know they have a community that will help them when they need it.

“I want them to know that this is a safe place,” Kelly said. “This is a safe haven for creators, people, to feel seen and heard and understood because building a business is hard.”

How the Peach Shoppe & Co. began

Kelly landed on the name The Peach Shoppe because she’s the only Georgia girl in her family. She’s felt a sense of community in the state as she’s grown up here, Kelly said, but has been aware that she’s the first in her family to be a Georgian.

“They’re all such northerners,” she said. “My mom’s side, my dad’s side, my two older sisters. Everyone is from Michigan.”

The family moved to Columbus in the early 1980’s when Kelly’s father got stationed in Fort Benning, now called Fort Moore. Not long after the move, Kelly was born and her family stayed in Georgia.

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” she said. “I never moved away. Honestly, never even thought about it. I guess it’s my home. These are my people.”

Throughout her life, Kelly has always enjoyed crafting. She stayed busy between work, school and crafting. She began to make vinyl crafts like monograms that could be put on objects like tumblers or laptops.

“I was like, this is pretty neat, I wonder if I can make a t-shirt,” Kelly said.

By 2016, Kelly officially started her business, The Peach Shoppe. She continued working as a banker while running her own business until the COVID-19 pandemic began.

She’d loved her job working at a financial institution, but the pandemic showed her what she was passionate about.

“When COVID happened, and all the people went away, I had to just sit in an office and talk to people on the phone,” she said. “I realized the whole time, it was the people. It wasn’t actually the job.”

So, Kelly created a business plan and began networking with other shops to sell her items in stores. But she eventually found a location earlier this year in February where she could open her own storefront.

When Kelly first walked into the former Visitor Center, she knew this building was perfect.

Visit Columbus, GA vacated the building last September, Bowden said. When the pandemic began, the center had fewer visitors.

“We realized that it was costing us more to operate than it was providing a service,” he said.

People use their cell phones more often now, Bowden said. Visit Columbus, GA has had more success using a mobile visitor center and working with businesses, like The Peach Shoppe, that offer souvenirs and other products that have a Columbus-focus.

The decor and style of the building left behind from the Visitor Center is what appealed to Kelly when she envisioned what The Peach Shoppe would be.

A blue painting of the Chattahoochee River was on the floor, there was a black and white cityscape on the wall and an ode to Coca-Cola being invented in Columbus was on another wall.

“I see the river every day,” Kelly said. “And there’s a train that goes by — it’s perfect.”

Kelly’s mom, Tina Aguilar, and her husband, Brandon Kelly, have been instrumental in helping her put the store together, she said. Because she and her husband have been unable to have children of their own, the couple have made the Peach Shoppe, their dog, Chevy, and loving their nieces and nephews fill the void, Kelly said.

Brandon has supported her by building many of the tables and furniture in the store.

“He has become a woodworker out of love and the passion that he sees in me,” Kelly said. “So, we just make it happen.”