A one-stop shop for all your gifting needs is now open for business in downtown Riverside.
June & Lark, a curated gift shop offering household goods and home decor items as well as gifts for lovers of meditation, golf, bees and more, opened its doors on Aug. 1. The shop at 39 E. Burlington St. is open from 1-6 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and by appointment only on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
“The goal is to be able to find something for anyone and to be able to build a gift. Maybe you want to have three different, little items that make a larger gift feel more personalized,” said Sara Burcheri, the owner and operator of June & Lark.
Burcheri, a self-described “consumer and shopper by nature,” said she felt the store filled a niche in Riverside’s retail landscape for people to pick up small gifts.
“I’ve always had a little bit of a retail background, and [a gift shop] is really something that was lacking here in Riverside that we needed, which is the main feedback from almost every person in town who comes in,” she told the Landmark. “They say, ‘We needed this’ … I wanted [people] to be able to go grab a birthday gift, grab a hostess gift, and not have to leave Riverside to do that.”
Burcheri said business has been consistent since the shop had its grand opening, even with August being a historically slow retail month and the shop being closed to the public three days out of the week.
“There isn’t a ton of traffic on those days, so it’s great for me to be restocking and getting things organized,” she said.
The Riverside resident said she has spent her career working in retail management, beginning in college, when the owner of her store “took [her] under her wing” to show her the backend of owning a store.
“After college, I worked at Macy’s for about 15 years in event marketing. A lot of experiential events, but really, [I focused on] creating a customer experience that keeps them wanting to come back,” she said. “I’ll try to use all of that knowledge here, having different events and pop-ups. Because it is a smaller town, there have to be ways to engage people and get them to keep coming back for more.”
She said she plans to rotate inventory often to keep the shopping experience fresh for customers who come in often and to partner with local vendors so that both brands benefit.
“There are a lot of entrepreneurs in Riverside that maybe don’t have a brick-and-mortar and aren’t a competitor to me in that way. It’s more like, how can we support each other?” she said.
Moving forward, Burcheri said she’s looking forward to diving further into the analytical side of being a business owner, figuring out what sells and how to balance her inventory, with plans to offer concierge gifting — assembling gift packages for people based on the interests of the recipient and their budget.
Burcheri said the leasing agreement for her Burlington Street space came together almost on a whim when the space freed up due to the limited real estate in Riverside.
“I wasn’t planning to have this business. It was just an idea that I liked in my mind. ‘I would like to have a store. It would be fun to open a store if there was a space available,’” she said. “The stars aligned with the landlord of the building saying, ‘I like your idea. I like your plan. It’s yours if you want it,’ and it was like, ‘OK, make a big decision.’”
But when the chance came along, Burcheri said she would rather take action and bring something she would like to see in Riverside to the village than continue to complain about the lack of it.
In turn, the Riverside community has shown up for June & Lark, Burcheri said.
“Everyone is really excited, and it’s been an overwhelming feeling of people being so happy to see something, and they come in, and they love it, and it’s so positive overall,” she said. “There’s support in the broader community and support in my tighter community, all my friends coming to help, unboxing with me and pricing things. Stuff that they don’t have to do it, but they do.”
