Dig into Pita’s Planters

How Lupita (who goes by Pita) Rios has the energy to run a small business as a full-time graduate student is anyone’s guess. “I have good help,” she says with a smile, indicating her partner in life and business, David.

While Pita works to finish her PhD in Neuroscience and manages the shop, David handles the day-to-day business, stepping in to provide a little help anywhere he’s needed.

In fact, getting a little help is what Pita’s Planters is all about.

A business born of Covid.

In 2020, Pita found herself in the same situation that many of us faced. Covid shut down the world, bringing her PhD courses and future plans to a screeching halt. She began to feel anxiety and have panic attacks. To cope, she created ceramics, the perfect compliment to her natural affinity for plants.

“One of my main motivators for starting Pita’s Planters was to talk about mental health, and how working with plants could really help. Instead of hiding it, I wanted to share my story, and share my love for plants and working with my hands.”

LIke many Latinos, Pita’s life and family experiences also influenced her business. Though she was born in Houston, Pita grew up in Guatemala until the age of 12, where she developed a strong interest in – and admiration of– plantlife. “Guatemala is a beautiful, vibrant place, with giant plants and monsteras [a popular plant that easily grows indoors or in a terrarium] everywhere you look.”

Growing a business in a socially distant world.

Pita and David began to work on her idea for beating the pandemic blues with the green spectrum of plantlife. They knew they had a great way to manage the isolation many were feeling, but stores everywhere were closed without any sign of opening back up.

Where to begin? Go to where the people were.

“We spent the first four years in our pop-up store. We got the trailer and could take it anywhere we wanted to go.”

Pita’s pop-up store is an itty-bitty trailer lined with pots and plants of all kinds, the perfect way to bring her life-affirming planters to the Dallas Farmers Market. It also opened up entirely new opportunities that were uniquely suited to a mobile storefront.

Sprouting seeds of creativity and growth.

Pita soon found that having a mobile shop was beneficial for a number of reasons, including the ability to hold workshops where she’s needed most; for example, at a local hospital with cancer survivors.

“We held pop-ups and workshops in many different places, going wherever people wanted us to go. We teach people how to make their own containers and then use everything we have on hand to craft their planters.”

Upcycling also plays a big role in Pita’s business. She takes bits of broken glass, pottery shards, even materials like crystals, and other odds and ends that might otherwise end up as trash, and uses them to create something new.

“I’ve always been eco-conscious, so I wanted to make things that would have a positive impact on the environment.”

Much like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where the artists create new vessels from broken pottery and gold lacquer, Pita’s upcycled containers are artistic, distinctive, and personal to Pita and her customers; a new creation that is more valuable than the sum of its parts.

Upcycling Pita’s Planters.

In 2023, Pita’s business was growing too big for its container, so she expanded from her pop-up trailer to a brick and mortar store in the quiet and charming Casa Linda neighborhood of Dallas that Pita calls home. “I live right down the road,” she laughs.

The shop is everything you’d expect from Pita: small, sunny, and painted with Instaworthy wall art and charming affirmations. And of course, it’s chock full of gorgeous, vibrant plants, handmade containers and knick knacks that celebrate the joy of plant parenthood.

As Pita continues to pursue her PhD, her partner David remains her biggest supporter, staffing the shop on a daily basis so that Pita can study, manage the business, propagate seedlings and find new ideas for gorgeous containers. .

But she also has another partner helping with the new brick and mortar business.

“Verizon has been a game changer.”

Verizon Business provides Pita with a technology solution that helps her connect with customers. When Pita first moved into her shop, she first signed up with another internet provider. “It was terrible. We constantly had outages. People would be in the middle of checking out, and the internet would be out. It was costing us money constantly.”

But from the moment she made the switch to Verizon, the difference was immediate. “We immediately started getting calls,” she said. “We haven’t experienced a single outage since we switched, and even if we did, we have the hot-spot to provide backup. It’s all about peace of mind.”

Pita is not alone when investing in technology. According to the Verizon Business Latino Small Business Survey, about three-quarters of Latino small business owners surveyed leveraged digital tools and technologies to change their processes and customer experiences (77%) or create new opportunities to make money (74%) over the past three years.

Embracing a bright future.

This Small Business month, we’re celebrating small businesses and their owners whose creativity, persistence and sacrifices have made their dreams come true. For business owners like Pita, we are excited and honored to provide them with reliability that they can count on as their partner in communications.

For more information on Verizon Business, check out: https://www.verizon.com/business/.

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