Tough economies are often a blessing in disguise for businesses hoping to launch or expand. The challenges presented when things are heading south force owners and managers to be smart and get creative to survive.
Such corporate behemoths as General Electric and Microsoft were born in the teeth of recessions. More recently, Uber and Airbnb launched during the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 (many gig economy businesses were helped by others’ misery).
Now, several entrepreneurs in the Upper Valley refuse to be frightened off by a pandemic that is only trending downward for the coming months.
Call them optimists or call them naive — either way these merchants’ decisions represent better news in a year of dire headlines for businesses.
After a four-month delay, Red Kite Candy opened its first storefront in Hanover last week on South Street in the space formerly occupied by Verizon retailer Amcomm Wireless, which moved to South Main Street.
“Hanover has been a little rough, but we felt it was the right place so we went for it,” said Mike McCabe, who with his wife, Elaine McCabe, owns the Bradford, Vt.-based maker of caramels that have attracted a devoted following.
Although it seems contrary to both long-term trends in retail and obstacles presented in operating a business during COVID-19, Mike McCabe said the new store is a critical building block for the company’s future growth, and will include a candy-making kitchen.
“A brick-and-mortar store is a big part in our plan to grow and get our brand out there,” McCabe said. “We’re growing online but it’s only a store that can convey the taste and aroma of our caramels. … Facebook ads are kind of obnoxious.”
Hanover’s Gnomon Copy owner Jim Bolger, whose store has been located in an alley off South Main Street for four decades, is relocating and expanding to the building at the corner of South Main Street and Maple Street, where the Hanover branch of Bank of America is located.
“The plan was, even before COVID, potentially doing a move like this,” Bolger explained.
Although a pandemic would appear not to be a time to undertake such a big change, Bolger said “the closer we get to moving to the new location, (the more) I feel it will increase our exposure and bring us new clients we didn’t have before.”
Bolger said the first three months of 2020 were the best since he’s owned the business — he bought Gnomon Copy in 2017 after the death of his brother-in-law, Gnomon owner Gary Caplan.
Then revenue plunged 70% during the COVID-19 shutdown as a result of canceled events, for which printed materials constitute a key segment of Gnomon’s business.
Since summer, sales have picked up again, although they’re still “somewhat below” where it would normally be, according to Bolger.
Despite taking a big hit this year, Bolger said the store needs more floor space for new equipment that will streamline printing, an investment he sees as necessary to grow his business.
Bolger said there remains steady demand from the Dartmouth community for printing everything from administrative reports to student theses.
But where he has really increased his printing business is banners — like the ones strung across South Main Street by the town in Hanover — store posters and annual town reports.
The store’s longtime location, down a flight of stairs with an entrance in an alley, hasn’t been ideal for visibility. The new corner location means higher traffic — as drivers try to avoid South Main Street by short-cutting through School Street and Maple Street — thereby raising Gnomon Copy’s profile.
“Even though I’m going to incur an expense to move, in the long run I’ll be able to create a more efficient workflow than I can today” and become more profitable, Bolger explained.
He expects to be relocated in the new space by the third week of November.
The promise of hundreds of cars passing by likewise convinced Mike Antonowicz that he picked the right location for Nostalgia Cafe, a new coffee, pastry and sandwich shop a few hundred yards from Quechee Gorge on Route 4 and set to open Sunday.
Located in the space where Dana’s by the Gorge restaurant had been located for several years, Nostalgia Cafe will feature “high-end” espresso drinks and Peet’s brand coffee, said Antonowicz, who is opening the cafe with his wife, Karen “Ren” Antonowicz.
The couple owned restaurants in Massachusetts before moving to Quechee 18 months ago and decided to open a cafe after they “couldn’t find a good cup of coffee,” Mike said.
“When we saw this place become available, we said, ‘Why not do it?’ ” he recalled.
Initially, they plan to focus on pastries, bagels and light lunches before expanding the menu and adding beer and wine, he said.
As for opening in the midst of a pandemic, Antonowicz concedes some might wonder if he and his wife “just got out of the nuthouse.”
But they plan to entice morning commuters and weekend tourists traveling along Route 4 — the cafe will open at 7 a.m. and close at 1:30 p.m. — and, at least in the beginning, be geared largely toward to-go orders.
“There is going to be a high percentage of paper and plastic going out the door,” Antonowicz predicted.
Rachel Irish, one-quarter of the two wife-and-husband teams behind Masters of the Toyverse, a vintage toy store scheduled to open Sunday at Glen Road Plaza in West Lebanon, laugh as she said, “Yes, we’re crazy to be opening during COVID. She admitted she has asked herself several times, “What am I thinking?”
But, Irish said, “this is my husband’s dream. He’s wanted to own a toy store since childhood.”
Her husband, Bethel drywall contractor Jeff Irish, and their partners, Josh and Shannon Smith, of Tunbridge, are toy collectors whose home garages are filled with Star Wars toys, G.I. Joe dolls, Funko collectibles, Ninja Turtle figurines and Hot Wheels cars, to name a few.
The store will carry selected contemporary toys, but the emphasis will be on “vintage” toys, which Irish describes as “anything from the 1970s to now” (and to be distinguished from antique toys, which the store will not sell).
In addition, Toyverse will sell video games, game consoles — and DVDs, “because nobody is selling them anymore,” Irish said.
Another longtime Hanover store, International DVD and Poster, is going through some big changes.
Ken Gorlin, who opened International DVD in 2003 and for 17 years has been a reliable source for Dartmouth students to find memorabilia to decorate their dorm rooms, was closing the store as of Saturday.
Gorlin said he’s “going to be 70 soon” and is retiring, a decision he said was advanced by the pandemic.
“The virus just shut us down. Business is way off,” Gorlin said.
Sales sunk with the lack of tourists passing through Hanover during summer and the absence of kids from camps coming into town to shop, he explained.
Gorlin, who owned the Video Max video store in Lebanon before he opened International DVD, said his retirement should not spell the end of the business, however.
Longtime store manager Bryan Smith, who has been with Gorlin since the store opened, is in the process of acquiring the business and plans to move it across the street — under a new name to be determined — in the storefront formerly occupied by Morano Gelato, according to Smith.
“I will be recreating the store,” said Smith, who noted he will focus on selling posters, vinyl records and Dartmouth memorabilia.
He hopes to be in the new location and open by the middle of December.
“Until things get back to normal, I’m going to be taking a chance,” Smith said. Although Smith said he knows the first six months of 2021 will be challenging for sales given how the pandemic is expected to persist, it is an opportune time to make such a move.
“I’m taking advantage right now while the space is available,” he said.
Smith’s business philosophy is simple.
“When there is adversity, there is opportunity,” he said.
Take this opportunity to contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.
