Coffee, plants and yoga? It’s all at the growing Greenhouse in Sycamore

SYCAMORE – After two years of success, Sycamore entrepreneurs Troy and Kailey Rorer have grown their business specializing in houseplants. Now, they’re gearing up to expand their offerings at The Greenhouse.

Situated inside a retail space near the corner of Route 23 and Plank and Peace roads, The Greenhouse, 265 W. Peace Road, is not in a traditional plant shop space.

Nearby restaurants have closed, but Troy Rorer, 33, said the startup he and his wife created in 2022 has been doing well.

So well, in fact, that they’re bringing in more options for customers, including a coffee spot and expanded room for yoga classes.

“[Business has] been really good,” Troy Rorer said. “We’ve got a lot of support from the community, which has been very good.

“Truly, the best part of this whole thing is getting to meet a lot of people in the community. And with our three kids going to the elementary school here up the road, too, we’re able to meet a lot of people through that, and also introduce ourselves through this as well.”

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Troy Rorer, owner of The Greenhouse with his wife Kailey, sets up their new coffee area Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, at the store in Sycamore. The Greenhouse has expanded in size and will soon offer new services. (Mark Busch)

Inside the shop, couches and coffee tables are nestled between a cornucopia of colorful and vibrant green plants, some of which are exotic, to create open and intimate spaces. A bright and alluring painted mural wall catches the eye.

After hearing customers remark about the unique space they’ve cultivated, Troy Rorer said, they wanted to find a way to keep people in their shop.

To that end, coffee service, including espresso, is expected to start being offered this month.

The plant shop, which specializes in repotting and replanting a variety of houseplants, succulents, cacti and others, also expanded from 1,700 square feet to 3,000, Troy Rorer said.

Kailey Rorer, a mural artist, said she has a big heart for creating space for people and thinks the indoor garden-like room could become a place for community engagement.

“I think that the way a space feels has a really big impact on the people in that space,” Kailey Rorer said. “And so that heart is really poured heavily into the plant shop because our goal and our dream is for it really to become a sort of hub for people to come hang out and come meet a friend, or come get work done and maybe be inspired for a way they want their home to feel.

“It’s really exciting to see that play out. There’s a lot of ways that this has been – in a great way – surprising in how fast and how much this has taken on.”

The Greenhouse in Sycamore is open from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. That’s not the only time people are in the space, however.

Bonnie Stewart-Henson has been instructing yoga for six years. Four weeks after The Greenhouse opened, she approached Kailey Rorer about the possibility of hosting yoga sessions in the plant shop. Stewart-Henson said she told Kailey Rorer that she could have classes in the space up and running within a week.

Kailey Rorer said she’d always imagined yoga to have a home in the plant retail space and was happy to host.

Stewart-Henson has run with the business-to-business partnership ever since.

Fittingly, Stewart-Henson’s Bonne Living Yoga also will expand with The Greenhouse. Starting in April, she’ll host hot yoga – during which yoga is performed in sauna-like temperatures – in a room remodeled specifically for that purpose.

For Stewart-Henson, it’s a match made in heaven.

“It seems kind of serendipitous, too, because we’re all kind of looking for the same thing,” she said. “I’m a plant person, and she had done yoga before, so it just seemed like we were meeting in the right place at the right time.

“And we’ve just been able to kind of play off of each other’s gifts and skills, and I include Troy in that as well. It’s been great. It’s been a great working relationship.”