By Claudia Perez Rivas | Kingsville Independent News
When you step through the door of Bigfoot Rockeaters, something softens. The space feels like an exhale, steady, warm, and unhurried, an unexpected pocket of calm on East Caesar where the rush of the outside world seems content to wait by the door. Plants gather in gentle clusters, handmade pottery rests in warm earth tones, and the air carries a sense of ease that settles the body before the mind has time to name it.
The shop belongs to Kaylor and Kaitlin Frakes, who didn’t set out to open a plant business, much less a studio for yoga and moon circles. It all started in 2019 with a single cactus brought home from a construction job. One became many, and many became a greenhouse, and somewhere between then and now they acquired a nursery license, a pottery wheel, and a surprising online following of plant lovers from all over.
The name came from Kaylor, who paired Bigfoot, a nod to the mythic wanderer, with Rockeaters, a reference to hardy Texas plants that survive by pulling nutrients from stone.
It captured everything they loved the symbolism, the toughness of the plants, and the meaning behind it.
“Once he explained it, it made sense,” Kaitlin said.
The name stuck the way good names do: first with amusement, then with affection, and finally with inevitability.
They tried a live auction on Palm Street, an online platform where growers host real-time plant sales. It caught on quickly. Soon, boxes were being packed and shipped out to customers who followed their livestreams week after week.
Kingsville remained home through all of it, the place where the Frakes rested, raised their children, and kept imagining a space they could share with others.
They found that space at 908 East Caesar Avenue, tucked inside a building that had been quiet for several years. Renovations came slowly and collaboratively: scraping, painting, wiring, sanding, and the kind of problem solving that is common in older buildings. At one point, while looking for the breaker box, believed to be hidden in a small closet, they discovered an entire extra room they hadn’t known existed.
Today, the studio has become something uncommon in Kingsville. Bigfoot Rockeaters is an unconventional hybrid business that blends specialty cactus and succulent cultivation, handcrafted pottery, yoga instruction, and women’s moon circles under one roof. What began as a modest plant hobby quickly evolved into a multi-service creative studio designed to give residents a place to reconnect with nature, self-care, and community.
The plant side of the business leans into slow-growing collectible species, some prized by serious growers for their rarity and form. The pottery wheel offers a way to shape and make with the hands. And the yoga and moon circles create space for breath, reflection, and quiet gathering.
As Kaitlin puts it, the studio is “a place where you can get a little nature, a little nurture, and get your hands in the dirt.”
As people began walking through the door, one theme kept returning: belonging.
“We wanted to build a space where people could walk in and feel accepted exactly as they are, without being judged,” Kaitlin said. That simple premise began shaping what Bigfoot Rockeaters would become.
That sense of openness extends beyond the Frakes’ own work. The studio also makes room for other local artisans and growers, photographers, glass artists, microgreen farmers, and others, offering shelf space and visibility without rigid contracts or high costs. The idea, Kaitlin says, is simple: give people a place to be seen, and trust that community support will follow.
Yoga classes are offered on a donation basis, come if you can pay, come if you can’t.
“Kingsville has so many people who want to try things like yoga or meditation but can’t always afford studios,” Kaitlin explains. “We wanted to build a space that says yes to them.”
Women’s moon circles, held on new and full moons, blend meditation, journaling, and quiet conversation.
“There’s no fixing and no judgment,” she said. “Just space.” The most recent circle welcomed six women, some lifelong residents, others newly arrived, each carrying their own stories.
Bigfoot Rockeaters has become a place for hands in clay, breath on a yoga mat, soil under the nails, and women speaking freely in circle. It feels like it belongs here, among other small spaces shaped by people who care about craft and community.
The Frakes are growing the studio slowly and with intention, hoping it becomes a space that genuinely belongs to the community. As Kaitlin puts it, “I don’t want to grow fast. I want to grow with integrity.”
As the business enters its second year, the Frakes are less focused on scale and more on participation: more pottery classes led by Kaylor, more yoga mats on weekend mornings, more collaborations with Parks & Recreation, and more opportunities for residents to try something new without needing to leave town to do it.
When you step back outside, the sounds of East Caesar return, the hum of passing cars, the pace of the day, the familiar rhythm of town life continuing as it always has. But something lingers from the moments inside. A little calm. A little brightness. The knowledge that Kingsville holds rooms like this, made by hand, tended with care, where people can show up exactly as they are and find themselves welcomed.
Bigfoot Rockeaters will open its doors again tomorrow. And the day after that. And quietly, patiently, a community will keep finding its way in.