'Antique' like a Pro

Given how many antique stores can be found in Prescott, Chino Valley and surrounding areas it’s likely you’ve at least considered perusing them to furnish your home. But that’s often easier said than done.

Many would-be antiquers feel overwhelmed at the prospect of sifting through stores and antique malls packed to the roof with treasures and comparative trash to find something that’ll work at their home.

You might know someone who seems to be a savant at finding the perfect vintage and antique items to create timeless interiors, but they’ve usually discovered tricks like these to get to where they are — along with a little bit of luck.

Plan Ahead

Reflect on the style of décor you have or want to have throughout your home and the kind of condition you want it to be in.

If looking for something specific, bring a tape measure and notes about how much space you have to fill. Color samples or photos also are a good idea for knowing if a purchase will fit with what you already have.

Bringing cash can often get you some great deals, and having a budget that you won’t go over unless you unearth something you just can’t put back is a great idea for keeping your spending in check.

Check For Damage Or Authenticity

Authenticity is likely to matter more to you if you’re buying antiques as an investment as well as a home good, but knowing everything about the condition a piece is in is always going to be important.

Bring a flashlight and/or black light with you to inspect any large pieces you’re considering to uncover any flaws or repairs that aren’t readily visible but could compromise the integrity or durability of a piece.

Learning some of the basics for determining authenticity also comes in handy.

Walk Through The Store At Least Twice

Even a well-organized store is likely to have hidden shelves and corners, so it’s good to do an initial run-through to look for the things on your list, then again more slowly for serendipitous finds.

Prescott LIVING: So let’s get into all of your restaurants. It looks like you and Rhona bought Nana’s Café, then called Café 10, in August of 2021, and now you have a total of four. Is this something you’ve been planning on for a while? Has it been part of your vision?

Jamaal McCoy: No, it wasn’t originally. It just came up one day. I think the conversation when Rhona and I started was: How can we get more involved in the community, more than what we’re currently doing? We started looking at business opportunities. When Cafe 10 became available, we talked about it. She loves cooking, she loves baking. It was close, where I could walk to it and help manage it.

Once we got into it, we got around the people and loved the customers, loved the interaction with the customers and engaging with them. That was a huge benefit.

But the bigger benefit for us was we saw the difference we were making in our staff’s lives and wondered how could we multiply that and give people opportunities who didn’t think they had opportunities, through some of the things they were dealing with.

So we just said, “Well, how can we do more of this?”

Prescott LIVING: What drew you to each of these places now owned by Krave Restaurant Group? And will you be adding any others?

Jamaal McCoy: For every single one of them, I was a customer. With Cafe 10, I probably went over there two, three, four times a week, loved the food and just thought we could keep what was great and expand on it.

Barbudos

Mexican Grill, I’d always heard about this Mexican place in town that used to be very popular and had the best Mexican food. So then when I tried it, I thought it was great, and then it became available.

With Vibes Juice Bar, we had some of their acai bowls at the dealership, and I thought it was great, and it was vegan and sugar-free. And while I was in the process of building the gym, that one became available. And so Rhona and I talked about how perfect that was for the health and fitness community.

But the barbecue place, I’ve actually been working on for almost three years now. In between the first time working on it, they sold it to someone else, and then we bought it from that person, and Lucy Dee’s is now State 48 Hometown BBQ.

As for the future, we are constantly thinking of new concepts that we feel would be a benefit to our community.

Prescott LIVING: And you also own Fit Body Boot Camp, which opened in September. Obviously, growing up in the Army, with all the structure and this overall health and lifestyle, you’ve always been active and healthy and in the gym kind of mode. What made you decide to buy a gym?

Jamaal McCoy: I played sports my whole life, so I’ve always been a gym rat. And when I came here, I didn’t have the same type of access to things I was used to in Vegas.

Owning a gym is another thing that was always kind of cool to me; having my own space. But the catalyst behind that was I had a few guys that have worked for me in the past that always talked about doing something that could inspire people and change lives". A gym was something that has always been on my mind and combined with their passion, I figured it could be a great opportunity.

Prescott LIVING: OK, this is a big, broad question to end with. What do you envision moving forward?

Jamaal McCoy: I’ll always be involved in automotive to some extent. What I love to do is to coach and help others. For me, the perfect role would be truly overseeing and helping general managers become successful, helping them coach and develop their team while continuing to grow the Krave brands.

Rhona and I are now envisioning having multiple locations in multiple cities of the brands that are here. And really, what we would love to see is people have an opportunity to go run their own restaurant and possibly be able to have ownership in these restaurants.

In the next couple of issues, I’m going to take a detour from the continuing series of train travel in Europe to share a trip I just completed to southern Japan that involved as many as five trains a day.

by Tori Ward, Cruise and Resort Specialist, ROX Travel

Osaka was our launch pad for two nights while we explored and attended a maiko dinner performance at the Ganko Mansion House Takasegawa in Kyoto. Maiko are geisha in training as they master the art of and music and dance.

The maiko performed two dances, posed for pictures and answered questions about this fascinating career. The geisha and maiko have become so harassed by tourists stopping them for selfies that a law recently has been passed that fines anyone caught stopping one of these women on the street or snapping unauthorized photos.

The following day we did a slow bus crawl to Himeji Castle and Gardens. The traffic was relentless, and I longed for the train. It was snowing cherry blossoms at this UNESCO World Heritage site as the trees were at the peak of their beauty and families were taking advantage of this once a year spectacle.

Advance tickets are definitely advised as the wait time to purchase can be well over an hour. Also, shoes are not allowed inside the castle that is one of the few if not the most beautiful castles from the 1600s in Japan that have survived. The gardens themselves are quite beautiful and you can keep your shoes on.

The bullet train station or Shinkansen was about a mile walk from Himeji where we boarded for the quick trip of just under an hour to Hiroshima. The trains are clean, quiet and fast with announcements in both Japanese and English. A quick pre-trip internet tutorial will explain how easy it is to understand how to find your train, car and seat.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum was an emotional, but necessary, stop for us where it was hard not to become emotional over the cost to civilians of international conflict. It was a reminder for us to never take a single day for granted or forget to let our children know how much we love them.

Another quick train ride delivered us to Miyajimaguchi Station where we walked to the ferry terminal and after a 10-minute ride, arrived at the island of Miyajima.

The island is a wonderful collection of walkable streets filled with pastry and coffee shops, but if you like oysters this is your world. Raw, grilled or fried, there are dozens of oyster bars and restaurants where service is quick. Full of oysters and Sapporo we walked along the shore to Itsukushima Shrine, better known as the floating shrine where the red torii gate seems to float on the water at high tide. We wanted to spend more time there, but we were headed to Nagasaki, a train journey of over three hours.

Our stop in Nagasaki included the Peace Memorial Park, Glover Garden and the oldest standing Catholic Church in Japan, Oura. Glover Garden is a park where Thomas Glover, a Scottish merchant who contributed to Japanese modernization in several industries, had a house built in 1863. It is the oldest western-style house in Japan. The park with the residence museum involves climbing a hill, but once you ascend the views overlooking Nagasaki harbor are stunning.

In our next issue we will conclude our cherry blossom tour of southern Japan as we visit Kumamoto, Takachiho Gorge, Yufuin, Shikoku and finally Ritsurin Garden before heading back for a neon night in Osaka.

Tori's Tips

If you’re flying from the U.S. to Japan to visit western or southern Japan, try to book flights to Kansai International Airport. Both Tokyo airports are large and while friendly, the lines for both immigration and security were over an hour long at Haneda.

Have patience, a GPS, and a Japanese translation of where you are going if you take a taxi or Uber. Tipping is not expected or encouraged. (Download Google Translate or another language translation application.)

Wear socks as many restaurants, shrines and other facilities prohibit the wearing of shoes indoors.

Be prepared to depart the train as soon as it stops. That means being up with your possessions gathered and moving toward the door before arriving in the station.

If you are lost either in a train station, airport or street just stop and look lost. Someone will help you and often walk with you to where you need to go.

The flowers are blooming, and summer is right around the corner. But the real deal is on sailings later this year and early next: hundreds for as little as $100 a day to relaxing beaches in the Caribbean, the marvelous Panama Canal, autumn joy in Canada & New England and more. So, stop and smell the flowers … but show some love to the other seasons with a vacation then.

This promotional piece is distributed by an independent travel agency, not by Princess.

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