Kat’s Krystals expands into small business vendor hub in East Palestine
For 2026, East Palestine business owner Kat Smith is continuing to grow as an entrepreneur and starting a new vendor venture to help fellow businesses succeed.
She’s the owner of Kat’s Krystals; the store recently moved and expanded to Kat’s Krystals and Vendor Vault on North Market Street in East Palestine.
“I actually started out in a vendor store similar to what I own now,” Smith said. “I was a shelf on a bookshelf, and it grew and grew and grew. After the derailment, I decided to branch out on my own and open the business in a smaller building, two and a half years ago. Then we decided that we’d outgrown the space and wanted to expand.”
Kat and her husband, Travis, began looking at available spaces to expand Kat’s Krystals in East Palestine. The couple felt a pull toward the building that had given Kat’s Krystals a chance years ago: the home of the former antique store, Mama’s Attic.
“But it was too big just for my crystal shop,” Smith said. “My husband has been wanting to open a store similar to this for a number of years, and we felt like this is the opportunity that we’ve been waiting for to be able to do both things.”
In January, Smith welcomed customers into the new location for Kat’s Krystals and The Vendor Vault with a ribbon cutting at 9:30 a.m. at 147 N Market St. in the heart of East Palestine.
They’ve built a wall down the middle of the space with permanent shelves for the vendors to personalize and sell their merchandise all under one roof.
“The type of vendors may change through time; our ultimate goal is to have a crystal/oddities shop with artists, but obviously that sort of thing takes a lot of time and work to curate,” Smith said. “Right now we have a bunch of small businesses, artists, crafters and stuff like that, which I love the mix that we have. It gives a great variety.”
Smith received an overwhelmingly positive response from community members sending in applications for their businesses and products to showcase.
“It’s way more than we were anticipating, that’s for sure,” she said. “We still have people being added to the wait list. We’re completely full now; we have even created more space like over here’s some wall space.”
Customers can browse for gifts and hidden treasures at Kat’s Krystals and The Vendor Vault from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. on Tuesday - Friday and 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. on Saturday at 147 N Market St. in East Palestine.
“What we’re hoping is maybe they’ll go the same route that we did, as far as growing their brand and their space enough to where they feel like they have a big enough customer base to support moving into one of the empty buildings that we have down here,” Smith said. “We have a learning space, so we’re going to have crafting classes that even people that aren’t vendors, if they want to host a crafting class, are welcome to come in and do that here. A bunch of the vendors are going to be doing crafting classes, as well as me with crystal classes.”
