Popular Astoria Home Goods Shop Earth & Me Opening 2nd Location

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Two years after its humble beginnings in an Astoria apartment, the zero-waste shop Earth & Me will soon achieve a major milestone: its second brick-and-mortar store.

The business announced on Instagram Thursday that it will open a new location at 23-71 31st St., just north of 24th Avenue. It joins Earth & Me's inaugural storefront, which opened last September on Steinway Street near 30th Avenue.

The well-liked but hard-to-define shop offers everything from soap to kitchenware to pet toys to bulk, refillable spices, with a focus on plastic-free, reusable items.

It is the brainchild of Kayli Kunkel, who developed Earth & Me after being laid off from her marketing job during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Kunkel, then 27, made a list of the values that she could imagine herself pursuing professionally, and started her own small business by selling curated products from her home — in many cases delivering them personally by bicycle, as Patch reported at the time.

"I want zero-waste options to be accessible to people, fun to use," Kunkel told Patch at the time.

Thanks to strong local support, Earth & Me opened its Steinway Street shop last fall, featuring ample retail space, a mini-cafe featuring vegan and gluten-free treats, and a rear garden that serves as a community space.

The upcoming location, on the ground floor of a new apartment building, will likewise have retail and "a wide variety of refills" — plus a backyard garden and "rotating vintage popup," according to Thursday's Instagram post.

An opening date will be announced closer to October, according to the post.

Learn more about Earth & Me on its website.

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