MINNEAPOLIMEDIA NEWS | Nature’s Syrup Beauty Opens Downtown Minneapolis Flagship as Community Celebrates De’Vonna Pittman’s Journey

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (July 30, 2026). Nine years after De’Vonna Pittman began mixing plant-based hair and skin care formulations at her kitchen table, the Minneapolis entrepreneur stood inside a packed downtown storefront Wednesday and watched the community celebrate what that work had become.

Nature’s Syrup Beauty officially opened its first permanent brick-and-mortar store July 29 with a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony at 733 Marquette Avenue in the Baker Center Skyway.

The opening brought customers, entrepreneurs, friends, civic leaders and downtown supporters into the new flagship, where shelves displayed the company’s plant-based products for curls, coils, textured hair and skin care. For Pittman, the crowded store provided visible evidence of a business journey sustained through nearly a decade of uncertainty, persistence and community support.

“I started the business almost nine years ago at my kitchen table, and to be here today at our grand opening is almost surreal,” Pittman told MinneapoliMedia shortly after the ribbon-cutting. “The community showed up. They had this skyway jam-packed. People could not even walk by. The store was packed, people supported, and people saw the fruit of their own labor.”

Pittman was careful not to describe the opening as an individual achievement.

“We all did this together,” she said. “I did not do this alone. This is not something that a person can do alone. I am grateful and honored for this moment.”

A Dream Takes Permanent Form

Nature’s Syrup Beauty grew from Pittman’s search for products that could nourish textured hair without asking customers to compromise their natural beauty.

The company’s beginning was also personal. After Pittman’s daughter experienced ridicule over her natural hair, Pittman began reconsidering the beauty standards that had shaped their lives. She researched ingredients, developed her own formulations and built a company around hair care, skin care, confidence and belonging.

Nature’s Syrup Beauty was officially founded in 2017. Its product line now includes shampoos, conditioners, curl rejuvenators, hair oils, body butters, lotions and other plant-based beauty and wellness products.

Until Wednesday, however, the growing company did not have a permanent retail location of its own.

“This is a dream come true,” Pittman said. “Although I never imagined having a store or wanting a store, this shows me what is possible when you trust and believe in yourself, when you go all the way and when you keep going even through the challenging times.”

Pittman said the difficulties behind the celebration should not be minimized. Entrepreneurship, she said, often requires people to continue working before they can see clear evidence that their work will succeed.

“Entrepreneurship is not easy,” she said. “But what I’ve learned is that if you keep going, you will manifest everything that you have been working toward. Everything leading to today, every day, every little thing, even the things that I thought were little, has brought us to this moment.”

Community Fills the Skyway

The turnout gave the opening the feeling of both a business milestone and a community homecoming. Visitors moved through the store, examined products, spoke with Pittman and shared stories about their own experiences with natural hair and skin care.

Some came specifically to support Pittman. Others discovered the business while walking through the skyway.

Paul, a Lakeville resident, told MinneapoliMedia that he noticed a Black-owned business in the skyway, entered the store and purchased a product for his biracial daughter, who has curly hair.

He said a staff member offered guidance about caring for his daughter’s hair and helped him understand which products could work for her.

“I spent my career working in downtown Minneapolis, and I don’t see a lot of Black businesses, especially through the skyway,” he said. “Being able to have one in a downtown central location where I can walk in, tap in and grab whatever I need makes a big difference.”

His experience demonstrated one of the opportunities created by a visible retail location. Online sales can place products in homes across the country, but a storefront allows customers to ask questions, receive personal assistance and discover products they may not otherwise encounter.

For families caring for curls, coils and textured hair, that access can be especially important. Many customers have spent years searching for products and advice suited to hair types historically overlooked by the mainstream beauty industry.

A Store Designed for Belonging

Pittman said she wants the flagship to become more than a place where customers complete transactions. Plans include product-making sessions, skin care programming and opportunities for visitors to learn about the ingredients and methods behind the company’s products.

Most importantly, she wants people to feel welcome.

“We want you to come in so we can meet you and hear your stories,” Pittman said.

That emphasis on personal connection was reflected in the experiences shared by longtime customers at the opening.

Gloria Freeman, founder and CEO of Minneapolis-based Olu’s Home, described the store as elegant, welcoming and representative of Pittman’s personality.

“It is gorgeous. It’s elegant. It’s beautiful. It’s exactly the way it should be, and I’m so proud,” Freeman said.

Freeman said she has purchased Nature’s Syrup Beauty products repeatedly and identified one of the company’s body products as a particular favorite.

Asked what it meant to see a Black-owned beauty business establish itself downtown, Freeman was direct.

“I love it,” she said. “We should be everywhere. We are everywhere, and if we’re not, we’re going to be.”

Dawn Stevens, co-founder of Minnesota Podcast and Content Studio, also attended to support Pittman. Stevens said she uses the company’s hair products and welcomed the arrival of a business serving a broad range of customers in a central location.

“It is very important for this type of business to be here because it caters to a variety of people in Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding areas,” Stevens said. “It is a central location where anybody can come.”

Stevens said locally owned businesses can help restore activity to downtown by giving residents meaningful reasons to return.

“We can bring back the foot traffic by having these wonderful businesses here,” she said. “I think it is amazing and exciting that this new business is in downtown Minneapolis.”

Part of a Broader Downtown Strategy

Nature’s Syrup Beauty is part of the Chameleon Shoppes program, an initiative of the Minneapolis Downtown Council and Downtown Improvement District in partnership with the Chameleon Consortium.

The program helps women and entrepreneurs of color establish businesses in underused downtown storefronts. Its purpose is not only to fill vacant commercial space, but also to give local entrepreneurs greater visibility, access and opportunities to build lasting retail operations.

The Minneapolis Downtown Council described Nature’s Syrup Beauty as a company that began with handmade kitchen formulations and developed into a brand helping people embrace their natural hair with confidence.

The flagship’s opening came during Minneapolis Black Business Week, connecting Pittman’s achievement with a larger effort to recognize Black entrepreneurship and expand economic opportunity.

Mayor Jacob Frey publicly congratulated Pittman and welcomed Nature’s Syrup Beauty downtown. The mayor described new businesses as investments in the city’s future, particularly as Minneapolis continues working to strengthen commercial activity downtown.

The significance was not lost on Pittman.

“A beauty brand, a Black-owned beauty brand, and we celebrate during Black Business Week what is possible with the support of community, family and friends,” she said.

Pittman believes the store can also help other Black entrepreneurs imagine themselves entering commercial districts where businesses owned by people of color have historically been underrepresented.

“Downtown Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota need us,” she said. “It needs everybody in this state, and Black women are builders. Black women get things done.”

Entrepreneurs Supporting Entrepreneurs

The celebration was strengthened by other local business owners who contributed their time, products and services.

Nadia Wotrang-Brown, owner of Nadia’s Jamaican Kitchen in Brooklyn Park and a friend of Pittman for more than 35 years, catered the opening. Guests were served Jamaican jerk wings, beef patties, jerk chicken patties, salad and plantains.

Wotrang-Brown described Pittman as a woman whose kindness, integrity and commitment to others have shaped the relationships around her.

“She is such a powerhouse,” Wotrang-Brown said. “She is an amazing woman. She is caring, she is kind, she is a person of her word, and she is always there to help.”

Looking around at the turnout, Wotrang-Brown said the attendance reflected the community Pittman had built long before opening the storefront.

“It was phenomenal,” she said. “The turnout was beautiful. It shows you the type of person she is. She is loved, and people love her because she loves people. This is well deserved.”

Wotrang-Brown, who began pursuing her own restaurant dream in her 50s, said she hopes Pittman’s milestone encourages other aspiring entrepreneurs to act on ambitions they may have postponed.

“Focus on your dreams and never abandon your dreams,” she said. “At 54, I started my dream. It just shows that it is never too late.”

Jeni Cleveland, an employee-benefits professional and longtime Nature’s Syrup Beauty customer, said she came to champion a friend whose products she uses regularly.

Cleveland recalled Pittman recommending body butter to help her skin withstand Minnesota’s dry winters. She said Pittman’s progress from product development to national marketplaces and now a permanent downtown location offers an example for other entrepreneurs.

“She has been a force to be reckoned with,” Cleveland said. “She is somebody who is a trailblazer, and I look up to her.”

Persistence Before Confidence

During her conversation with MinneapoliMedia, Pittman rejected the idea that entrepreneurs must feel completely confident before pursuing an opportunity.

She said courage was not something she possessed in unlimited supply when she began. What carried her forward was the decision to continue even when belief, financing and certainty were in short supply.

“I didn’t have the courage,” Pittman said. “I didn’t believe that I could be here. But even if you don’t believe, you have to keep going. You have to keep moving.”

Her message to other entrepreneurs was rooted in the less visible reality behind Wednesday’s celebration.

“You cannot give up on your dream,” she said. “You cannot give up on yourself. You have to keep pushing even when you’re having a hard time, even when you don’t have enough money, even when you don’t know where the money is coming from.”

Pittman said she does not view herself as fundamentally different from other people trying to build businesses. The difference, she believes, is often the willingness to remain with the work through its most difficult periods.

“I am no different from any other entrepreneur,” she said. “The only difference between me and someone else who might not make it this far is that they gave up.”

A New Destination in Downtown Minneapolis

Nature’s Syrup Beauty enters downtown at a consequential time for the district. Minneapolis leaders, downtown organizations and property owners continue searching for ways to adapt commercial spaces to changing work patterns and reduced weekday foot traffic.

Independent storefronts can play an important role in that transition by making downtown a place people deliberately visit, rather than simply pass through on the way to an office.

The Nature’s Syrup flagship adds a locally built beauty business, a community gathering place and a source of specialized products to the Baker Center Skyway. It also gives customers an opportunity to support a Black woman-owned company with roots in Minneapolis.

Stevens encouraged residents to make that support intentional, even if it means changing their regular shopping habits.

“Go out of your way to come downtown and shop here,” she said. “Rather than going to the big-box stores, come downtown, get everything you need and stock up. We can support Nature’s Syrup and support De’Vonna on a consistent basis.”

The company’s announced store hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday. Customers should confirm hours with the business before making a special trip.

For Pittman, the opening is both an arrival and a beginning. The kitchen-table formulas now have a permanent address. Customers can enter from the skyway, ask questions, explore the products and meet the people behind them.

But the meaning of the store extends beyond what is displayed on its shelves. It stands as evidence of what can happen when a deeply personal idea survives uncertainty, when community support becomes sustained economic action and when an entrepreneur keeps working long enough for an unseen possibility to become a place people can walk into.

“This shows people what is possible,” Pittman said. “I am here to get things done, to be kind to people and to let people experience what it feels like to truly be at home.”

Nature’s Syrup Beauty is located in the Baker Center Skyway at 733 Marquette Avenue in downtown Minneapolis.

Sources: MinneapoliMedia on-site reporting and interviews;

Nature’s Syrup Beauty; 

Minneapolis Downtown Council and Downtown Improvement District;

Chameleon Shoppes;

Public statement from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey,  Mayor Jacob Frey's post