DENTON
August 2017
Business
CHRONICLE
www.dentonbusinesschronicle.com
Health kick
Business booms for vegan products, restaurants By Jenna Duncan
Nacho cheese made from cashews. Yogurt made from coconut. Burger patties made from soy proteins. These types of meat and dairy alternatives are gaining popularity across Denton as more Americans transition to a vegan diet, a style of eating in which people don’t consume any animal byproducts, from meat to dairy to honey. Mean Greens, the first all-vegan dining hall in the country, opened at the University of North Texas in 2011, and the movement has continued to grow. More restaurants are offering vegan options, grocery options without meat and dairy have exploded and now Denton’s first all-vegan restaurant, Spiral Diner, is set to open this month. For Tesa Morin, a Denton resident who has been vegan since 2010, things have gotten easier and more visible, and she thinks the diet will keep trending upward. She started a website chronicling vegan options in 2011 after realizing it was hard to figure out what people could eat where, and has gained hundreds of Instagram followers for posting where she can eat out that includes vegan options. “I think it’s a lot easier nowadays than it was back then, and of course things come and go — I’ve had to VEGAN | CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
Photos by Jake King/DRC
TOP RIGHT: Loni Puckett, co-owner of Juice Lab, mashes avocado on toast to fill a customer’s order at the organic juice bar at 508 S. Elm St. in Denton. ABOVE: Puckett purees fruits and vegetables to make a large order of juice at Juice Lab. The business serves more than 50 juices made from fruits and vegetables, as well as a variety of raw and vegan foods.
In Texas, the last baseball glove maker refuses to die By Andrew Mayeda | Bloomberg
By Jenna Duncan and Matt Payne Staff Writers
So long, Lone Star Taps & Caps. The beer store, bar and music venue closed July 30. The company’s other two locations in Fort Worth and Lewisville are still open, but the company said profits at the Denton location were steadily declining. Downtown also now has a cozy events venue above First People’s Jewelers, Venue on the Square. The aptly-named space holds about 40 guests and can be rented by the hour. While a few have departed, there’s some new businesses in that same area: Captiva Salon and Spa. The salon first opened in Denton in 2010 and moved to a space in the old Thomas’ Ethan Allen building on West Oak Street last month.
But wait, there’s more! Blue Bag Grocery also opened in downtown, at 501 S. Locust St. The micro-grocery has necessities like toilet paper and eggs, but also fresh produce, alcohol and so many snacks. There are some new doctors in town: Texas Digestive Disease Consultants has opened shop at 209 N. Bonnie Brae St., Suite 200. The location offers general gastroenterology procedures, including colonoscopies and advanced level procedures. Rocky Haire, founder of the Haire Law Firm, recently opened a Denton office at 1003 Dallas Drive. Haire Law Firm is a personal injury and wrongful death firm that represents clients involved in 18-wheeler accidents and crashes involving cars, DUNCAN | CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
This little brick factory isn’t supposed to be here. It should be in the Philippines, or Vietnam, maybe China. Not here, in the heart of Texas. Baseball gloves, like many other things, aren’t really made in America anymore. In the 1960s, production shifted to Asia and never came back. It might be America’s favorite pastime, and few things are more personal to baseball-lovers than their first glove — the smell, the feel, the memory of childhood summers. But most gloves are stitched together thousands of miles away by people who couldn’t afford a ticket at Fenway Park. One company didn’t get the memo. Since the Great Depression, Nokona has been making gloves in a small town about 70 miles northwest of Denton with a long history of producing boots and whips for cowboys. There’s a livestock-feed store next door to the factory, which offers $5 tours for visitors who want to see how the “last American ball glove” is made. You can watch employees weave the webbing by hand, feed the laces through the holes with needles, and pound the pocket into
Cooper Neill/Bloomberg
Nokona baseball and softball gloves hang on display for sale inside the store at the Nokona manufacturing facility in Nocona, Texas, on July 27. shape with a rounded hammer. The American flag gets stitched into the hide — and that, they say at Nokona, is more than just a business matter. “Made in America means you believe in our country,” said Carla Yeargin, a glove inspector and tour guide at Nokona, where she worked her way up from janitor. “We have the love for the ballglove, because we made it here.”
And the final product could cost you 25 times more than a foreignmade version at the local discount store. Yes, that’s partly a reflection of the premium nature of the Nokona line, but still represents a huge challenge for the company, as well as for Donald Trump. “Making it here” is a big deal for the president. Last month Trump GLOVE | CONTINUED ON PAGE 11