grow Magazine | Summer 2019

grow

Summer 2019

a greensboro chamber of commerce publication

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Bucket List

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The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce is the largest business organization in the community serving more than 1,000 member businesses through programming designed to help them succeed and grow. A partner in the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance, the Chamber also serves as Greensboro’s primary economic development organization, with special emphasis placed on community and entrepreneurial advancement through Action Greensboro and Launch Greensboro.

IN THIS ISSUE july 2019

grow

SUMMER BUCKET LIST

a greensboro chamber of commerce publication

Publisher Brent Christensen bchristensen@greensboro.org

Explore our area this summer by visiting these 11 locally owned and operated businesses. Whether you want to plan a day out with the family or need to spend some time on self-care, our Greensboro Chamber of Commerce members have you covered!

Editor Megan Mabry mmabry@greensboro.org

Looking for a product or service not featured in this issue? Visit bit.ly/GSOChamberMembers to browse all our member businesses.

Writing & Graphic Design Holly West hwest@greensboro.org Advertising Heavenly Walker hwalker@greensboro.org

grow is published quarterly by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce for the distribution to its investors, members, and other interested parties. The publication is written and edited by the Chamber and editorial decisions are made by its staff.

The views expressed in grow should not be interpreted as the official policy of the Chamber. The publisher reserves the right to decline advertising considered unsuitable for publication.

Editorial Assistant Meredith Smith intern@greensboro.org Cover photos taken by Holly West or submitted by member businesses.

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Teens and retirADOPT A HEALTHY HABIT ees forge The Shoe Bus + The BoVega www.theshoebus.com

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oo busy to join a gym or spend time shopping for healthy foods at the grocery store? Let The Shoe Bus come to you.

The mobile fitness boutique provides group or individual workouts wherever you are, complete with all the necessary equipment and an instructor.

“We can come to your house, we can come to your office, we can meet you somewhere,” said Emily Morris, who co-owns the business with her husband, Jake.

One of The Shoe Bus’ corporate clients is the High Point Public Library, where it hosts a senior workout every Friday.

The Morrises also own The BoVega, a meal service that provides pre-made, vegan dishes.

The menu changes weekly and features breakfast, lunch and dinner options that go beyond what most people think of when they hear “vegan.”

“I’ll never deliver a salad unless you ask me to deliver a salad,” Morris said. “My favorite thing to do is to take things that are non-vegan and make them taste better than they would as an animal-based meal.”

Recent meals have included stuffed shells with homemade marinara sauce, Thai pizza and a stuffed breakfast burrito.

Morris said both The Shoe Bus and the BoVega are a great option for corporate retreats or a lunch-and-learn.

Not only are the group workouts good for team-building, but inspiring healthier habits in employees can lower health care costs for companies in the long run.

PHOTO BY BRYELLE DAFELDECKER

DEVELOP A SKINCARE ROUTINE

Nailah’s Shea www.nailahsshea.com Sold online and at Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, Grandover Resort & Spa, Meraki Handmade and Vidapour Tea.

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hile working as a part-time pharmacy technician in college, Camilia Majette learned about the harsh chemicals and toxins that make up many commercial skincare products.

Not wanting to expose her two children to those ingredients, she decided to start an all-natural line of skincare products to treat common conditions like eczema and dry skin.

“I wanted to find a more holistic approach to their healing and their body,” she said.

The Nailah’s Shea line of body butters, sugar scrubs and soaps comes in a variety of scents, including lavender, lemongrass and rosemary mint, among others.

This August, Majette is launching facial mists, toners and three types of facial masks.

All Nailah Shea products are made with shea butter, sometimes called “African gold,” in addition to other ingredients like coconut oil and sugar.

Shea butter has anti-aging properties and helps reduce free radicals in the air. Majette said her products have a natural SPF of 5-10.

Majette committed to using fair trade ingredients in her products whenever possible after seeing the process of harvesting shea butter from trees firsthand during a visit to family in the east African country of Tanzania.

“It really opened my eyes into knowing where the raw ingredients are coming from,” she said.

Her commitment to doing right by others is a cornerstone of Nailah’s Shea. A percentage of the profits go toward community service projects.

Majette teaches free classes on DIY skincare twice a year and donates products to women in need. This year, she worked with the YWCA of Greensboro and the Wake County Women’s Shelter.

She also donated travel-sized soaps and body butters to the shelter.

LEARN ABOUT ESSENTIAL OILS

Botanically Rooted

1024 W. Gate City Blvd. www.botanicallyrooted.com

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hese are not your Facebook friend’s essential oils.

Botanically Rooted Co-Owner Kimberly Seymour is a clinical aromatherapist and works with clients to create custom skincare routines backed by science.

“It’s a place where you can come and get evidence-based, real information, and that’s hard to come by in the essential oil field,” she said.

The store includes a wide variety of essential oils and essential oil-based products that can be used to help with issues like pain, allergies, insomnia, hormonal issues and stress.

While the United States doesn’t have a grading system for essential oils, Seymour

Co-Owner Amber LaBorde.

Co-Owners Leslie Rice, left, and Kimberly Seymour. and her co-owners, Leslie Rice and Amber LaBorde, have their own standards.

“All of our oils are tested to ensure that the chemical components that have been judged to be efficacious are present in the oil and that the oil is what we say it is,” Rice said.

For example, tea tree oil from Australia has certain chemicals that help with acne and other skin conditions, but tea tree oil from China does not.

Seymour said personal consultations are important to help clients find the right type of product.

A person can walk in the store and ask for lavender, but there are 48 types of lavender, each with its own properties.

“I’m going to ask eight to 10 different questions,” Seymour said. “What kind of pain? How long have you had it? What medicines do you take for it? What are you trying to accomplish?

And then we go from there.”

For those interested in learning more about essential oils, Botanically Rooted hosts classes both at their store and out in the community.

Seymour also teaches a monthly class at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital and speaks to UNC Healthcare residents twice a year.

Teens and retirTRY SOME NEW BREWS ees forge Four Saints Brewing Company 218 S. Fayetteville St., Asheboro www.foursaintsbrewing.com

“There are no strangers at Four Saints. It’s just some friends you haven’t met yet.”

PHOTO BY BRYELLE DAFELDECKER

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ake a break from your usual haunts to see what’s brewing in Asheboro. Four Saints Brewing Company has a simple mission: to create great beer for good people.

CEO and Owner Joel McClosky said that unlike many breweries, he and his business partner Andrew Deming aren’t concerned with trendiness.

“We focus on classic-style beers, some with a bit of a modern twist,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re focusing on the newest fad, it’s more great beer that people will come back to.”

Four Saints has six year-round, award-winning beers: Potter’s Clay Amber Ale, German Hefeweizen, Omie Blonde Ale, Genesis Belgian-style Dubbel, Upper Road and Stout One. Patrons can also try a variety of seasonal and limited-edition brews.

McClosky said he aims to create a homelike atmosphere in the taproom, which he describes as laid back and family-friendly.

You won’t find a TV at Four Saints. Instead, it’s all about making connections with other people.

To facilitate those relationships, the brewery hosts weekly trivia nights, run clubs and live music.

McClosky hopes that by the time a customer leaves his brewery, they feel as though they’re leaving home.

“There are no strangers at Four Saints,” McClosky said. “It’s just some friends you haven’t met yet.”

FIND OUT WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM

Deep Roots Market

600 N. Eugene St. www.deeprootsmarket.com

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t Deep Roots Market, the human cost of producing food is just as important as the instore customer experience.

The local co-op grocery store is committed to making sure the people who plant, harvest and package its products are paid fairly and treated well.

General Manager Nicole Villano said that often means higher sticker prices.

“We get misunderstood by being some expensive store. That’s not what we are,” she said. “We are just pushing the cooperative movement away from enslaving people to produce food, which is what the corporate model is.”

Deep Roots is a co-op, meaning it is owned by people in the community who buy shares of equity in the business.

Anyone can become an owner, and every owner has an equal amount of voting power so that those with more money don’t control the business.

Owners earn rewards for shopping and get a discounted price on the store’s hot bar.

They also receive dividends of any surplus revenue. Villano said that means any money Deep Roots makes goes back into the local economy.

She has a word for people who choose to participate in ownership of and shop at co-ops like Deep Roots: heroes.

“Money spent at corporate grocery stores is funnelled out of the community and into wealthy corporations’ bank accounts,” she said. “At Deep Roots, those dollars are spent within the community over and over and over again.”

TREAT YOURSELF

Carolina Cookie Company 1010 Arnold St. www.carolinacookie.com

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ike a snowflake, each cookie that comes out of the Carolina Cookie Company kitchen is a little bit special.

“They look like grandma made them,” said Chris Belton, vice president of the company. “They’re not like Oreos or vanilla wafers — they’re not perfect.”

That’s what has made Carolina Cookie a go-to spot for edible gifts in the Triad for more than 30 years.

Anyone can walk into the Arnold Street baking facility and buy a dozen cookies, but what Carolina Cookie really specializes in is personalized gifts.

Corporate Sales Manager Colleen Biedney said tins customized with company logos are a top seller for the holiday season.

Year round, realtors give tins bearing their image to homebuyers and car dealerships send new car owners off on a sweet note.

Biedney said some Carolina Cookie customers have become known for their cookie gifts.

“If you put your branding on the tin, it’s not a gift from Carolina Cookie, it’s a gift from your business,” she said. “It’s a way to build your brand. It’s a way to retain your customers. It’s a way to get referrals in the door.”

Carolina Cookie was recently purchased by Pennsylvania-based baked goods supplier Byrnes & Kiefer Co. Belton and Biedney said the sale hasn’t changed their beloved cookie recipe, but it is allowing them to develop new items.

“We have a new flavor that we pushed out in the early spring, blueberry lemon, which has been very popular,” Belton said. “We’re getting ready to test some fall flavors: apple cider and chunky chocolate pistachio and different ones like that.”

VISIT AN ESCAPE ROOM

Patriot Escapes

306-G Pomona Drive www.patriotescapes.com

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t the movies, the action’s on screen. At an escape room, you can be the hero of your own story.

“For years and years and years, if you wanted to go out and lose yourself in a story, you had to go to a dark environment, sit with a bunch of other people and just be quiet while something played out in front of you,” said Patriot Escapes Co-Owner Wes Bunting.

At Patriot Escapes, participants can become immersed in a hands-on experience, racing against the clock to save the world from a nuclear missile or figure out where a nutty professor has hidden his secret discovery.

The escape rooms, called Cold War Crisis and Element-ary, were designed by Bunting himself, so each is a one-of-a-kind experience.

Bunting, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said it was important to him to base the storylines on real-life history and science.

“I wanted the game to play well so that when veterans play the game, they don’t feel that I sold out, that I was cheesy,” he said.

Knowledge of history and science isn’t required to win the games, but those in the know will get a kick out of some of the elements of the rooms.

A third room is coming soon, a western-themed game called Desperados Adventure.

In addition to family and friends outings, Patriot Escapes hosts corporate retreats.

Between the two escape rooms, there’s a boardroom that can be used for discussions and brainstorming sessions.

Bunting said escape rooms are a great team-building activity and can also shed some light on employees’ leadership skills.

“Managers oftentimes like to watch their teams play to see how they relate to each other,” he said. “How do they problem solve together? Is this team communicating well?”

Bunting said he can work with employers to design a retreat day that meets their needs.

ADD SOME FLAIR TO YOUR WARDROBE

Brilliant You Denim

www.brilliantyoudenim.com

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hese jeans are literally engineered to fit.

Brilliant You Denim Founder and President Terry Davis used her background as an electrical engineer to design jeans that are high quality, innovative and made right here in Greensboro.

What makes Brilliant You unique is its patented polyester spandex enhancements that are incorporated into the seams at various locations, allowing for a little extra stretch.

“You can get some stretch out of denim, and we have amazing denim,” Davis said. “But you are not going to get as much stretch as polyester spandex.”

The purpose of the enhancements is to improve fit by helping the jeans conform to a person’s body. Davis said her goal is to redefine the experience of shopping for jeans.

In addition to denim, the enhancements come in a variety of solid-color fabrics and fun prints.

B U Denim originally designed jeans just for women.

But more and more men started requesting them. In June, the brand launched a men’s line.

Davis started Brilliant You Denim in Seattle. She explored several avenues for production using contract sewing companies there before relocating to North Carolina to start her own manufacturing facility.

“It was very important that B U Denim brands reflected the standardized processes and quality control that were expected for engineering systems,” she said.

Now, her business is based at The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship.

Davis believes the resources available in “Jeansboro” will help her take the denim brand global.

“We know Greensboro can do it,” she said.

TURN TRASH INTO TREASURE

Reconsidered Goods

2805 Patterson St. www.reconsideredgoods.org

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t Reconsidered Goods, discarded items become new again with a little creativity from customers.

The nonprofit — which includes a retail store, workshop space, maker’s lab and community room — hosts workshops that teach people how to reuse items that might typically be thrown in the trash.

Fabric scraps become garland. Mason jars are made into vases. Weathered art is added to and painted over.

It’s all part of Co-Founders Paige Cox and Martha Hughes-James’ mission to divert reusable items from landfills.

For the month of May, Reconsidered Goods was able to divert 9.9 tons of materials.

“people can come and just enjoy a little bit of a retail experience, even though it’s a weird one.”

The first Wednesday and Sunday of each month, a “Make It” workshop walks participants through a Pinterest-inspired craft.

Also once a month, Reconsidered Goods partners with a local brewery or restaurant for a more casual experience people can enjoy with friends.

During the summer, the in-store maker’s lab is open every day.

“It’s $5 a maker,” Cox said. “It’s a great place to come bring kids on a rainy day.”

During the school year, Education Director Laura Maruzzella spends time in local schools talking with kids about the importance of recycling and upcycling.

If the store can’t use a donation, Cox said she finds another local nonprofit that can.

Frequent beneficiaries are the Teacher Supply Warehouse, Goodwill, Freedom House and area animal shelters.

The retail store is a great place to find one-of-a-kind items. Cox said it’s also an opportunity to slow down and do a different kind of shopping.

“People just take their time and they might not be looking for anything but having a good time looking, which you don’t really do much in retail stores anymore,” she said. “There’s so many stories behind the things in here.”

GIVE YOUR CHILD A HEAD START ON MUSIC LESSONS

Moore Music Company

615 W. Market St. www.mooremusiccompany.com

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or Al Stephens, president and owner of Moore Music Company, education and music go hand in hand. That’s why his business, which has been a Greensboro fixture for 80 years, invests heavily in Guilford County Schools’ music programs both during the school year and summer.

“I want kids to play music,” he said. “It carries over into improved grades across all subjects, improved discipline, just a whole number of things. Music programs give kids another family to belong to.”

Moore Music is a sponsor of three summer programs that are part of the school system’s Summer Arts Institute.

It is the sole funder of the Moore Music Band and Orchestra Jump Ahead, a program for rising sixth graders looking to start playing an instrument.

It also provides support for the Moore Music Honor Jazz Camp and the Moore Music Band and Orchestra Camp, both for grades 7-12.

Before school starts back in August, Moore Music will host its annual workshop for Guilford County Schools music teachers.

Throughout the year, Stephens and his staff continue working with students — leasing and selling instruments, offering lessons and donating to local band booster clubs.

The store stocks a variety of instruments, from keyboards to guitars to ukeleles, as well as the largest collection of sheet music in central North Carolina.

Stephens said he sees supporting local students’ musical endeavors as a way to create a generation of people who will grow up to appreciate music, support the local arts scene and, hopefully, become lifelong customers.

“What I’d like us to be is the community’s music store, versus just another music store in the community,” he said.

“I want kids to play music.”

CATCH UP ON YOUR CAR MAINTENANCE

Carolina Car Care

1616 Spring Garden St., Greensboro 144 MacDougall Drive, West End www.carolinacarcare.com

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arolina Car Care does everything from standard oil changes to fixing major mechanical issues, and you don’t need to know anything about cars to talk to the people who work there.

“We try to take the mystery out of auto repair,” said Operations Manager David Dew. “We don’t want people to leave confused.”

The shop offers a customer-first experience from the time one walks in the door.

Visitors are greeted by a welcoming waiting room that includes comfortable seating, a TV and an enclosed kids’ play area stocked with toys.

Once a customer’s vehicle has been looked at, technicians explain what was done to the car and provide digital documentation, such as an emailed copy of an inspection report or photos detailing damage.

Those whose vehicles require lengthy repairs are offered shuttles or loaner cars.

Dew said the business caters specifically to women, who are often overlooked by auto shops despite their purchasing power.

“Women make 70 percent of decisions when it comes to car care in their families,” Dew said.

Carolina Car Care has two locations, one in Greensboro and the other in West End. The name of the business was changed in January from Honest-1 Auto Care.

The business was a franchise of a national chain. Dew said the new name makes it clear that the auto shops are locally owned — and proud of it.

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UPCOMING EVENTS state of our community august 28 | koury convention center

MONTHLY EVENTS COFFEE & CONVERSATION A monthly event from 7:30-8:30 am A networking and educational program designed to bring leaders together to learn about important issues facing our business community.

GOLF CLASSIC September 23 | Sedgefield country club

this month’s topic

women’s executive connection OCtober 29 | proximity hotel

economic forecast

November 13 | grandover resort

On July 18, we will feature a look at the City of Greensboro’s Cultural Arts Master Plan.

MEMBER JUMPSTART Every third wednesday | 4 pm Meet your fellow chamber members and let everyone know what’s going on in your company while answering how the chamber can help you!

LET’S GROW TOGETHER!

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Weʼre new members of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and weʼre excited to get to know you and our fellow chamber members in the coming months! Letʼs grow our businesses together. IOP Communications, Inc. is your one-stop resource for: • • • •

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Call us at (336)of 676-2092 orpublication send an email to info@iopcomm.com. Together, we eensboro chamber commerce can plant the seeds for more business success in the Greensboro area!

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