Discovering Saxonburg

By Bronwyn Wain

The small town of Saxonburg is home to many small businesses, ranging from restaurants and markets, antique shops and even glass-blowing. The close-knit community hosts many events every year, such as the Mingle on Main, Sprankles Oktoberfest and the Saxonburg Arts Festival.

Batch’s packaged food options

Batch, a shop that sells products such as jams, quiche and many other foods and gifts, gets its name from how they prepare the food–in small “batches.”

“We both had two separate ideas. and we met through mutual friends,” co-owner Meghan Pohl said. “I wanted a little plant gift shop and Jess wanted to do small-batch foods. She had the idea of starting to sell jam and jelly, sell it at farm markets to see if people like it.”

Pohl and Jessica Brewster decided to leave their current jobs to start the business and have owned Batch for eight years. Brewster worked in restaurants in multiple roles, and Pohl worked for small businesses and gardens since her passion has always been for plants.

Pohl and Brewster recall the struggles of starting a business and keeping customers walking through the door. Prior to the pandemic, keeping clientele coming was one of their bigger issues.

“What we do is to-go food in small batches, so it’s helped but the struggle is always to provide a product that makes people still come through the door like on a regular basis,” Pohl said. “We’ve gotten better at it and rotating things, and just keeping customers interested in our business and what we’re doing.”

However, both Pohl and Brewster believe the pandemic has actually helped their business.

“I think COVID, that’s one thing that really has helped all of Saxonburg,” Pohl said. “It’s gotten people out of their bubble, and they travel more to smaller towns. I feel that our business has grown since COVID.”

One of the other main issues the owners noted that has affected their business is supply chain problems. “The supply chain shortages have made me want to scream,” Brewster said. “I have messaged Megan and said I want to freak out because we set our menus a week ahead of time, but in that same sentence, because we change our menu every week, it’s easy to fix that. If I had a set menu all the time, I would be very unhappy.”

With the local primary elections coming soon, regulations and government involvement are also at the forefront of these business owners’ minds.

“I don’t want so much reach within my business,” said Pohl. “Jam and jelly are things that people usually don’t do in Pennsylvania because of the regulations.”

Jessica Brewster on left, and Meghan Pohl

Pohl also mentions another popular issue in politics right now: minimum wage. “The minimum wage thing is something that scares me because Jess and I don‘t even make some of the proposed minimum wage,” Pohl said. “If they make us pay people $15 per-hour minimum wage, that could be detrimental to how much we can get done here because I can’t afford to have all those people.”

Another small business in Saxonburg, Sprankles Neighborhood Market, is fairly new to the area. “We just had our two-year anniversary on July 4th,” owner Doug Sprankle said of his Saxonburg store. Sprankle’s first began with Doug Sprankle’s father in 1998, and the business grew from there.

Doug Sprankle with sushi station in Saxonburg store Batch’s packaged food options

“We expanded to five stores, and it shrunk down to three, which were in Vandergrift, Leechburg and Kittanning,” Sprankle said. “At which point we sold Vandergrift and my dad wanted to get out of the business. I was owning Leechburg and my brother was owning Kittanning.” Sprankle recalled being hesitant to expand his business to Saxonburg.

“When Saxonburg became available, at first I really didn’t want to do it,” Sprankle said. “The biggest thing is it’s twice our standard footprint. The store is twice the size of any of our other stores, so that means twice everything else. Twice the exposure financially, twice the employees, and it means you have to do a lot more sales. It’s more of a bigger risk.”

Despite his uncertainty, Sprankles Neighborhood Market has grown exponentially and is a community favorite in Saxonburg. Since opening, Sprankle has added Conny Creek Brewing, a sushi station and more into his store.

“From an owner standpoint, having crew members that are committed has always been part of the culture here,” Sprankle said.

However, Sprankle has similar concerns to Pohl and Brewster about the upcoming elections’ effects on his business. As a business owner, he also agrees that less government reach would be ideal.

“The biggest frustration I’ve had is dealing with potential changes and laws that would negatively affect my business,” explained Sprankle. “Whoever goes into office, regardless of party, my hope is always that instead of adding more laws, let’s revisit ones that negatively affect adding more growth.”

Sprankle notes the community in Saxonburg and the role it plays in the success of its small businesses.

“The number one reason that happens is that there are a lot of committed owners, but there’s also support from the community and it’s a relationship because both are successful because of it,” Sprankle said. “Overregulation and over-taxation will long term negatively affect our community.”

Brothers Doug and Ryan Sprankle, with their father Randy Sprankle

Sprankle, Pohl, and Brewster all have similar demands for the future of local government, focusing on less control over their businesses from the government.

“What are they going to do to benefit us? I’d be interested to see because none of them talk about that,” Pohl said. “It’s always the shock and awe issues that they talk about. Until they can actually say what anyone’s going to do for small businesses, I don’t even know why it’s worth voting for any of them.” n

Bronwyn Wain is a senior at Kent State University studying Journalism and Political Science. She worked as a staff writer and on the social media team at KentWired, the independent news site of Kent State. She especially enjoys writing about music and politics, and she currently resides in Butler, Pennsylvania.