The Community, Connections & Commerce Podcast, presented by OUE & St. Clairsville Chamber - Community, Connections, & Commerce Episode 12 with Audrey Brahler

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

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sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Welcome back to Community Connections and Commerce. I'm your host, Drake Watson, along with Wendy Anderson and our special guest, Audrey Braylor. Thank you for joining us today. Wendy, good morning. Good morning, everyone. How are you?

How are you, Drake? Doing quite fine. Good. It's a great day out. It might be cold when the viewer or the listener is listening to this, but it's actually kind of chilly this morning as well. It is. Yeah. Hi, Audrey. How are you? Good morning, Wendy. I'm great. How are you? I am well. I am so excited that you're here today because we have a lot to discuss. So first of all, tell us a little bit about you and who's Audrey. Man, that is a loaded question, Wendy. Well, Audrey is a girl that when she was a teenager realized that she wanted to be her own boss. And at the end of the day, I wanted to be able not only to work for myself, but work for the community as well and and my employees, which is really what it's come down

to now. Nice. Okay, so you have three businesses in St. Clairsville. That's correct. Yeah. So what are they and in order as how you started them? Correct. So Giacinta's Gelato and Cafe is right there in downtown St. Clairsville. We established that October 29th, 2021 is when we were able to open our doors to the public. Wow. Okay. And then last summer, summer of 2023, I took over the candy shop in the Ohio Valley Mall. It was used to be CJ Buckets we were able to buy them out and we renamed Bear Necessities Candy and Soda and that that became official

August of 2023 okay and then most recently now I've been able to open Audrey's Avenue Kitchen and Bar also right in downtown St. C just a little across the street from Giacinta's. And that opened July 8th to the public. It did. Now, I have been there. Have you been there? Yes, I have. You have.

You said you were going to try to go. I was there not too long ago, actually. Okay. I think I still got some of it in my teeth. I got the meatball sub or the sl the sliders yes really good sliders are very popular for sure yeah and the atmosphere in there it's just incredible i mean it's it i like i always like this when i go to places you can kind of see the the history of the building a little bit when you go in there but it's reworked in a way that feels just so comfortable

and and it's it's all so nice like it's a it looks like and feels like a high class kind of place that you're in. And it's, it's really incredible. And I can't applaud you enough. Thank you. Thank you. It's definitely one of the more unique buildings in St. Clairsville. So what tell us about? So first of all, what? How did you decide to invest in the community of St. Clairsville? Why did you decide? So when I was younger, my family moved around a lot. Kind of jumped from state to state there for a little bit for my father's job. And we finally settled down in the area when I was about six years old.

And so to be able to be in a community for almost 20 years now and not have to worry about moving around, I definitely wanted to put my roots down. I loved St. Clairsville. I went to school at St. Mary's in town and then St. Clairsville High School. I've worked in St. Clairsville and been part of activities in St. Clairsville since I was a teenager. And I knew that's where I want my businesses to be when i just finally decided hey let's invest it was going to be st c okay did you do you just have that entrepreneurial spirit i mean how did you get started did you just one day think oh i'm going to open up a restaurant so restaurant wasn't the first idea and i love to tell people this I was never in food service

before Giacentis I've never been a waitress never had been a barista I put the time and research in to learn it all but at the end of the day you know it was it was community need St. Clair's will needed a coffee shop and the reason that I thought I could do it, that I had some sort of business background is from my parents. My father's a business owner. He's been my biggest business consult. And when I told my parents, you know, I remember being 14 and telling my parents, hey, could I do this? Could I open my own business and that be what I do for my livelihood? They said, sure, if that's what you want to do, we'll support you and we'll figure out how to do it.

And that has been one of my biggest blessings in life. Oh, that's awesome. You're very fortunate. Not everybody gets to do that and have that support from their family. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. But go ahead.

I was going to ask you why food and then why coffee. And so what was it that, at what point did you realize that, you know, St. Clairsville possibly needed a coffee shop? And then, like, walk me through that process. You know, you're thinking about that, and then you decide, maybe I could do this on my own. Well, long story short, the initial idea was something Italian. So we first came up with the gelato idea. I love ice cream.

I wanted an ice cream hangout spot. And that changed to gelato kind of filling in that Italian background and the fact that there was nothing like that around. Now you find out you have to sell a lot of gelato to be able to stay in business. So we brainstormed, what can we pair with this? And if you go to Europe, if you go to italy gelato shops are also coffee shops those two pairing together that is that is the pairing over there so we decided to do that as well and once we were able to get that corner building right there on main street it was a no-brainer this is the coffee shop this is now the hangout spot for saint c oh it is yeah i mean

every time i pass the kids love it yeah especially in the fall i see a lot even in the winter time because you have those big outdoor heaters right so you can still sit outside it might be a little chilly but you have those heaters doesn't bug some people that's when you get the soup and the hot coffee yeah that's right that's right so that corner building was such an eyesore in St. Clairsville. And for you to change it into what it is now, it's breathtaking, honestly. Yes, yes. You made such a huge impact into St. Clairsville. Year and a half that building took us.

And my favorite story is the fact that that building wasn't for sale and as we were looking through for properties it was very hard to find any in St. Clairsville at the time and it was my mother's idea she's the one that said that yellow building on the corner that would just be the perfect location and we found a realtor who knew the owners who'd let us in uh kind of wore down the owners a little bit to let us sell or to let us buy you know for them to sell sure and in april of 2020 it was made official and what's so funny about that story is once we did make it official and we saw the condition that building was in oh my mother wanted nothing to do with it. She was like, I'll see it when it's all set in time, when it's all fixed up.

And I just kept telling her, this was your idea. This was your idea. It was in bad shape, wasn't it? It was. That was a complete overhaul of the building, down to the bare bones, all new electrical plumbing, HVAC. You know, we tried to restore the original flooring. We tore down the ceilings to expose the original beams. The walls, I mean, just layers and layers and layers from over the years,

just getting torn out of that building. Wow. I remember, I mean, there was a long period of time where I would pass there every day and I would just see it's, oh, they're still working. And at that time I didn't know what was going to go in there and they're still working on it, still working on it. And then all of a sudden I see, oh, wow, this is a beautiful blue building with, you know, coffee inside. And it's one of the best spots to go in town for coffee or whatever you have. We really did have the advantage of being seen. Yeah. When we were renovating that building, I mean, from day one, we tore the side room off that building and the conversation started.

And that conversation kept going. It kept that momentum for that year and a half while we were renovating. So that first day that we opened, we had over 800 people come through our doors. They were ready. We were ready. Just we could not wait. So you actually went through the Charlie Wilson Leadership Program at Union Local, correct? Yes.

So I spoke with the students that were part of it. Yes. So how did that make you feel? I absolutely loved it. I loved it. You know, I've done my best to be a great role model to younger students and even my employees for as long back as I can remember. And actually one of my employees was a part of that program. So to be able to go there and speak in front of them and it was real nice seeing her in

the crowd. She was kind of a leader herself. She was making sure she was asking questions and sparking the conversation as well. And just to be able to have those conversations with the younger crowd and impart whatever wisdom I can to them so that maybe one day they'd be sitting here kind of talking about the same stuff yeah how cool would that be I think that's you know that I applaud you for doing that you know to be able able to spark interest and spark the leadership out of someone else's personality. They may not know that, oh, OK, well, that I didn't mean to be a leader, but now I guess I am a leader.

And you are definitely a leader in in St. Clairsville. So you also partner you partner with different local small businesses too. Tell us about that. Correct. So as a small business, to be able to market and drum up the different customer base can be challenging at times. So it is always ideal to be able to partner with other small businesses nearby that are close to be able to kind of, how do I want to put it, plan your activities together. So instead of just one person having a sale one day and trying to bring people in, if business A and business B are also, that's going to just drive more people. So now I've got my customer base and their customer base and hey we're doing this event together go check out this place too.

Now we're sharing customers and getting the word out for all small businesses. So that's going to bring more people and it's going to bring more business in than if we were just doing it on our own. Being able to work with the other local small businesses is, you know, can make or break events for sure. I agree. And you, go ahead. I think that collaboration is important. And it's, I'm glad you touched on that because we had somebody earlier on the show who said that he has a small business in, you know, that main street area. And he's like, even when that, when the Avenue does well, and when people are going there and when that opened up, it helped my business out because people are just it drives more people to that to that area

specifically and then they're going and spending money all throughout that that part of town and that was exactly our goal it was to not we weren't competing with anybody and people even asked me why open it 20 seconds from your other location why compete with yourself and i'm like i'm not i'm not competing with myself there are two very different ideas that are now complementing each other and just bringing in new people any type of business is going to help the other businesses because you're going to come in for Audrey's Avenue one evening but now you're going to see the different pizza places we have you're going to see the diner uptown and you're going to come back because you want to go there. Right.

Now you also partner with local businesses, Euphoric Donuts. Yes. Right. And don't you partner with someone in Pittsburgh for your scones or? Not recently, but we have been doing the Euphoric Donuts. He's out of Wheeling. And he approached me before he opened his location let us taste out those donuts i mean they were absolutely amazing i know

they're good camera mitchell the owner they're amazing dude he's running a very successful business himself and has been incredibly helpful too just the little things how are we getting the donuts from wheeling to st clairsville we have the donuts from Wheeling to St. Clairsville we have the donuts two days a week Fridays and Saturdays and at the beginning before he opened his location he was just bringing them to me super helpful and when he opened he got busy I came to him I would get the donuts both days and now that I've opened my look my other location now now he's bringing them again and it's just kind of that back and forth. What do we need right now?

What do we need to make this work? And the working together to make it happen. To me, that partnership between small businesses is dynamic. You have to be able to do that to ensure your success and their success, because it's not just about you. It's about everybody else in that circle of that makes you successful. And I think that's important. So over the time, over time that you've had your, your businesses, what changed? Have your approach changed in your investment in the community? How has your approach like from Giacentis, then the Bayer Necessities, and then Audrey's Kitchen and

Bar, how has that changed? Or has it changed? The change has been slow and gradual, I would say, because you find out right away as a business owner, you have to cater to your customer base. You're not opening, you can't open a business just to do what you want. That's never going to be the case. You're catering to that customer base and what they need and basically what they need so they keep coming back. Right. So really from the start, we knew this is for the community. So my focus has always been on the community. What does the community need? What do they need to see in town?

Again, I mentioned not having a food service background. When I opened Giacenta's, you know what I told myself? Man, at least this isn't a full-service restaurant. I'll never do that. And here we are. Because St. C needed it. The amount of people, you know, we want somewhere to sit down. We want somewhere to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.

That's not out by the mall. That's not a chain restaurant. It was much needed. And so in the back of my head for the last couple years how could we do this how is this going to work and then when I was approached beginning of 2023 uh by a local built built some local uh property managers they were like hey we have this location will you do this I just I had to say yes because that would that seemed like the logical next step what else does this community need to start bringing more people in and at the end of the day

you can have retail shops you can have fun little stores but people are going to come for food and they're going to stay for food yep yep so's where trying to, we're trying to build that base so that all these other ideas can be explored now. What went into, you talked about the gelato and the coffee thing for Giacinta's, or what went into the, you know, the thought process of, of Audreyters Avenue and how you decided to, to, uh, turn that into what it is. Right. Sure. So I knew I want, we needed something that had alcohol. And at the end of the day, St. Clair's hole is a dry town that had to get voted in. And we wanted to make sure that this wasn't just some sports bar pub or tavern, that This was a full restaurant that has a full bar, so you can enjoy those drinks, but you can also get some good food.

But we couldn't be just like any restaurant. We had to have some other different idea too, and that's how we came up with our menu. Our menu is two parts, tapas and loaded baked potatoes. Tapas are smaller-sized plates, shareable dishes. You and me are going to get a couple. We're going to try some different things. And next time we come back, we'll try a couple more.

But if you're wanting that big meal, those loaded baked potatoes, they're going to fill you up. And that has been a winning combination so far for this menu. And overall, I think just having somewhere where you can go and try something different is not only good for the St. Clairsville community, but we're finally bringing people from other communities as well. And that's what I always, that's one of my biggest challenges is to get, we all know that that the river is the nucleus of the Ohio Valley but to get people to cross both ways there's really cool

things here in Wheeling there's really cool things in St. Clairsville besides the mall and I'm not I love the mall I'm not putting them all down. But there's also those small businesses. And when I always say, you have to really try to support your small businesses, because they support you and your, your baseball team, your softball team, your wrestling team, whatever it is, you know, I'm sure you're asked a lot to donate or to supply something. So how do you balance the community's needs with the need for you to have sustainable financial? It's definitely a hard thing to balance because we, like you said, we are asked a lot and there are certain seasons where we're asked more than not. And I'm honored to be asked because we get people from Martin's Ferry from Barnesville Bel Air across the river from Wheeling and whatnot for sporting events or fundraisers

for almost really about anything and at the end of the day I would love to be able to contribute to every single one of them how amazing would that be that would be amazing yes but it's just balancing the financials too we are a small business I have you know expenses that come every month I have only a certain budget that I can go for each month I have to have that budget if I want to remain successful and be able to stay open because I want to stay open to be able to continue to sponsor. Right. So it is very hard balance and it's almost a shame that we have to pick and choose, but we do, I do tend to, you know, a little, a little closer to where we are. We sponsor more and every once in a while

branching out. Now events where it's gift cards or something little, we try and do as many of those as possible. Because that does help us get our name out, maybe bring a new customer in or two. But those larger sponsors, especially for sports teams, we do try and stay a little bit more local because that's the only viable option we can do. Absolutely. What goes into getting people and growing that customer base and getting people from around the area, not just St. Clairsville or maybe not even just St. Clairsville and Wheeling, but from, you know, the upper Ohio Valley, the western Ohio Valley, you know, different places. What goes into trying to lure them in and get your name out in that way? And correct me if I'm wrong. I had some pushback on this a little while ago. Is there a billboard on the interstate? There is. Yes. Okay. We do like billboards, don't we?

Yeah. That's just for Wendy and I. Yeah. Yeah. So what goes into getting new people into... Well, and that's just it. It's marketing. Marketing is a huge part of business that I feel some business owners sometimes forget about. A lot of times when there are budget concerns, marketing is the first thing to get cut. And it's understandable because you have to pay your employees. You have to buy your product. You need to keep the lights and the water running. So advertising is more of this optional item in your budget.

But at the end of the day, that's what's going to drum business back up. So I do have a set advertising budget that I have every month, and that's determined based off of the last month's sales. It's based off of the season. And that has been, I think, one of our biggest reasons why we are maybe driving some more people in, doing these different commercials every once in a while, having that billboard. And the way that I've set my businesses up, they're all technically under the same parent company. So that parent company has that billboard.

So I'm changing. So I have Audrey's Avenue up there right now. It was Giacentos. Yeah. So does that, that's interesting to me. Are you able to, let's say, for whatever reason, just this scenario, one of those businesses may be struggling. However, you had a really good month in the other one. Are you able to then take some funds and kind of, you know, place things where you'd like? So that gets messy. I figured it would. You know, there are two separate accounts and I try and keep it as separate as much as possible. But at the end of the day, it's one tax return. Yeah. So my accountant handles that stuff, though. But fortunately, I can say right now i haven't had to do that so i haven't run into that issue so far

uh do you think if you ever did run into that issue having that in the cards would be beneficial to you or would that cause too much of a headache what's that like i believe it'd be beneficial because that is kind of the main reason that i set that up okay the way that i did kind of a safety net you know so like right now at geosintas we've been having espresso machine issues oh really that's going to take a little bit to get fixed and at the end of the day if it means you know we need to take a little bit more out of audrey's avenue's doing good geosintas isn't going to go under and vice versa sure wow oh that makes sense really. I wouldn't have thought. I don't own a business, but I wouldn't have thought of that.

That's a lot of puzzle pieces, right? It is a lot of puzzle pieces, for sure. Ooh. Wow. What would you say, what would your advice be to someone who may be, whether it's an employee or someone aspiring to own a business such as yourself, maybe they're a student, maybe at OUE, you know, what would you say to them kind of looking back?

I mean, you're a young person yourself, but if you had to look back, maybe not as far as Wendy has to, but just maybe a few years ago as a young person. That was a shot. What would you say to them? I'm sorry, Wendy. That's okay. That it is possible. A lot of people have asked me, how have you done it? And I, you know, I hate to say I've just done it. This is, you know, it has become my job to make sure that these businesses are running and succeeding. And it's possible to learn how to do that. And there's resources out there for it. I've worked with the Belmont County.

It was the Community Improvement Corporation of Belmont County. They got me in contact with the Small Business Development Center that works through OU. And it's a free service for, you know, young business owners, small business owners here in Ohio. And they have been, you know, huge helps and consults to me over the last few years. Any question that I have where I'm not sure

like, hey, how, you know, am I doing this part right? Or this is the situation I have right now. What's your thoughts on how to handle it? They have that real life experience, which is more than I have at this point in my life that they can share with me. You know, they helped me develop a business plan. I went from writing my thesis paper in college to writing a business plan that summer for Giacentas. And it was quite the change from going from my literature theory thesis paper to now this business plan that I have to present in front of potential investors. And they helped with that kind of that change. You know, how do I go from this to this and I remember my consult telling me like Audrey this isn't a paper that you're getting graded on you know get out of your head with that

like you know get your points down you know almost like this a conversation piece how is this business going to succeed and how am I going to make it succeed right and I just needed to be ready and be ready to do that and now I know that Cindy Voorhees runs that small business development center at Ohio University and I know that has been a wealth of knowledge for a lot of small businesses Cindy is absolutely amazing she really is and that is something that I like I also send a lot of people to her because i know that she has she knows exactly what to do how to do it yeah wow you have um you have some really cool stories and i think my hat goes off to you i i really i'm really really proud of you and what you've accomplished in st clairsville and i i know I asked you this before we started. So you're taking a breather right now.

I will be. Audrey's Avenue is still pretty new. Yes. It's a lot of work. We're still figuring some things out. I'm very still hands on with that right now. Right. But, you know, this was three businesses in three years,

so people have already been asking me what's next, what's next. And I have a whole notebook of ideas. I've had this whole notebook of ideas since I was a teenager of what's next. Would you be able to let us in on, like, you know, maybe a glimpse of what one of those ideas might be? Well, there's always a need for Italian markets and delis in town. Oh, my gosh. Little fun retail shops that i want to do we i'm

a i've had somebody actually come out come at me at the office at the chamber office and say we do need an italian market yeah in this area we do not have one and if somebody else is able to do it i'm going to support them 100 you know they're gonna they're gonna be part of that small business thing that we got going on downtown and we'll be good to go there is so much room for opportunity and for really any downtown area if we can just get a couple people that are willing to invest and put in it yeah any downtown can improve you know i'm just focusing on saint c right now of course but you know my father's business is in Cambridge a couple of his employees

came up the other weekend and they looked at me when they came into GSM just and they went Audrey there is so much happening in St. Clairsville there is and so that the fact that some outsiders are seeing that now if we could get those local people to understand and see that too like hey this is happening right we are making this somewhere people want to come and people want to be yep that is the ultimate goal you're right it's so important to support our local businesses it i i could just shout that from the rooftop it is so important to support our local businesses because that is the success of the communities we don't want that to go away exactly exactly well we don't want that to go away. Exactly. Exactly. Well, we don't want you to go away either. We'd love to continue talking to you, but we are about out of time. So it's been

a pleasure talking to you. It's been really insightful and knowledgeable. And we greatly appreciate you carving out the time to come talk to us. Thank you both. This has been great. Yeah, we're excited to have you and see what you have in the future. Well, for Audrey Braylor, Wendy Anderson, I'm Drake Watson. This has been Community Connections and Commerce. You can reach us at ouepodcast at ohio.edu with any kind of feedback or comments or suggestions. Again, that is ouepodcast at ohio.edu. This has been Community Connections and Commerce.

Thanks for listening.