Print edition: 
Tina Stobbe grew up working in her parents' three stores in Newton.
All those nights, weekends and summers — Tina started out as a 5-year-old gift wrapper — didn't turn her off to retail.
"It's always been my dream to have my own store," she said.
Now she does. Stobbe — along with her parents, Ken and Vicki Stobbe — is the owner of Redbird Boutique, which opened in Cambridge Market last month, near 21st and Webb. It sells clothing and accessories, home decor, gifts, gourmet foods and more.
Although her parents are involved, Stobbe said, "It's all my design and creation in here, I guess."
Still, the boutique's mix of products evolved from the Stobbes' businesses in Newton. Ken and Vicki Stobbe bought High Street Co., a home decor and gift shop housed in an old neighborhood grocery, 25 years ago.
They later bought a paper products store and turned it into a clothing and jewelry store called Main Street Co., as well as the Kitchen Corner store next door, which sells cooking utensils and specialty foods.
"We kind of took the best of our three stores in Newton," Tina Stobbe said.
Tina Stobbe, who has lived in Wichita two years, said her family had been looking for a location here for about that long.
"We debate east vs. west and whatnot," she said. "We just happened to stumble on this area. My mom loved it."
The Stobbes had previously taken over existing stores.
"This was the first one we actually started from the ground up," she said. "It was a challenge from that respect, just ordering all the furniture and fixtures and getting all the merchandise."
Asked whether she thinks the family's approach will succeed here as well as it has in Newton, Tina said, "I guess we'll find out.
"We know we have some challenges ahead in figuring out what the market is. But we've been in business a long time. Making it in retail 25 years is quite an accomplishment."
She plans a grand opening Oct. 27-29. She's also promoting the store through Facebook and "wine Wednesdays," when customers can sip complimentary wine while shopping.
Stobbe said her entrepreneurial bent — and the source of her boutique's name — actually goes back one generation beyond her parents, to her grandmother, Lovella Adrian, who owned a restaurant, furniture store and other businesses in and around Buhler.
"My mother's mother was quite the businesswoman in her own day," she said. "We lost her nine years ago to cancer. My mother and I always thought we wouldn't be the businesswomen we are without her help and knowledge."
Stobbe said she was thinking about names for her store when she spotted a redbird — her grandmother's favorite — outside a window.
"I just feel like she was here helping me," Stobbe said.
