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Retailer News BRIEFS GOURMET NEWS APRIL 2020 www.gourmetnews.com RETAILER NEWS 9 Sugar Magnolia Continued from PAGE 1 drone," Tom said. "It's just been crazy; it's really been interesting. As a small busi- ness, there's no way I can afford the pub- licity that this thing has brought us. It has moderated a little bit, but we still get sales from it every week." In December, 2019, following the debut of the drone project, the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce named Sugar Magnolia its Small Business of the Year. "I think we've made a pretty substantial impact on downtown, and we've certainly brought families back downtown," Tom said. Sugar Magnolia was born out of the realiza- tion that t.r. collection's paper goods were selling out of all proportion to the 20 square feet or so that could be devoted them in the store's 600 square-foot sales floor. "That little section did considerably well, and we just thought, You know what – we don't have any more room for that, but there is clearly a market," Tom said. The couple decided that if they were going to expand that category, they'd need to find a new location for it, and they started look- ing for another storefront. "The original plan was just to open a high-end stationery store," Tom said. Many of the cards, jour- nals and pocket notebooks would be com- ing from Rifle Paper Company, which had been supplying many of the paper products that were sold at t.r. collection. While they were looking for the right lo- cation, Michelle, who was at that time on the board of Downtown Blacksburg, Inc., the community's downtown merchants as- sociation, discovered through a focus group conducted by the association that what local residents wanted to see down- town was an opportunity to buy ice cream. "Across all age groups, ice cream was the number-one thing," Tom said. "Stationery and ice cream seemed a little weird, but then we decided that it was pretty normal and maybe a little nostalgic, kind of like the old-timey drugstore or general store, where people gather to talk... We started thinking that the whole idea for the gift shop was to nurture the human connection.... It's the old drugstore-soda fountain re-imagined for the current era." By the time they'd found space to lease in a multi-use development project that was under construction at the time, the combination of high-end stationery and ice cream had begun to make solid good sense to the Raubs. "As we started putting it to- gether, we borrowed some concepts from other places we'd been. That's where the chocolate came into the picture – kind of a sweet shop," Tom said. "We borrowed some conceptual things from different places to create the sweet side of the store." The new space of- fered 2,500 square feet, which seemed like a lot after the coziness of their t.r. collection store, but the couple quickly found that by the time they'd planned in the space for the fixtures they needed to sell ice cream and confectionery as well as stationery, they were left with just enough space for five tables to seat a maximum of 20 people in their soda fountain area. "We thought that nobody would hang out at the store – that they'd take their ice cream and go outside. Then it turned out that everybody wanted to stay," Tom said. "We operated about six months there. It was just clear that we needed more space." Meanwhile, the developer who'd leased the storefront to the Raubs had an old bank building next door that was having trouble finding a ground-floor tenant. He offered the space to the Raubs, who started thinking about how they could expand their existing premises into the bank. "We had to inte- grate the two spaces by knocking a hole in the wall of the bank," Tom said. "Breaking into a bank ain't that easy." During construction, they closed Sugar Magnolia for three weeks during the winter class break at Virginia Tech, when business is quieter in Blacks- burg, and re-opened at the end of that three weeks with a giant heavy-gauge plastic sheet over the hole in the side of the bank while they fin- ished the interiors of a new space that now totaled about 4,500 square feet. With the bigger space, they were able to create a comfortable office and a conference room as well as to expand the seating area for their ice cream parlor and sweet shop. While the soda fountain and sweet shop re- mained in the space that had been the orig- inal Sugar Magnolia, the stationery and gift merchandise was moved into the for- mer bank building. The Raubs also now have storage space for the ice cream cart that they bought to cater weddings, cor- porate events and birthday parties and to add a third rev- enue stream to a business that they now think of as sta- tionery shop, sweet shop and specialty catering operation. "As we looked to see what was really available in the market here, we decided to take our sweet side on the road in a catering operation," Tom said. "We're not your normal caterer; we're like that cool niche caterer that adds the cherry on top of your event." Ice cream comes from Homestead Creamery in Wirtz, Virginia; popcorn comes from Poppy in Asheville, North Car- olina. Other sweets come from Nancy's Candy Co., red rocker candy; Deskins Can- dies; and Moonstruck Chocolate Company. The sweet shop's expanded seating area has also made space for in-store events such as birthday parties – mostly for Blacksburg's little girls – and bridal show- ers. Customers can choose one of two theme parties – either a paint party with a local artist or a princess party for which Sugar Magnolia partners with a local spa to provide mini-facials and manicures for the guests. For their refreshments, the party hosts can choose from a popcorn bar, a chocolate bar or an ice cream bar for which sundae toppings are all set up for them. "Most of them choose the paint party and the sundae bar," Tom said. "The additional seating area has afforded us the opportunity to do things like that. We're not content ever to sit – we're al- ways looking for new ways to use the space." GN Natural Grocers Campaigns to End Daylight Saving Time With a nearly 25 percent increase in the number of heart attacks on the Monday following Daylight Saving Time compared to the rest of the Mondays throughout the year, Natural Grocers is on a mission to create a healthier America by ending Daylight Saving Time. The grocer invited shoppers to sign a petition to that effect on March 7. The petition to end Daylight Saving Time calls to keep one standard time all year long by eliminating the practice of bi-annual time changes. The petition asks Congress to amend the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005), which sets the time for the entire country, and allow states the ability to opt in or out. Kroger Names Keith G. Dailey Group Vice President of Corporate Affairs Keith G. Dailey, Kroger's Vice President of Corporate Affairs, has been promoted to serve as Group Vice President of Corporate Affairs. Dailey, 39, has nearly 20 years of public affairs experience, including a decade in electoral politics and government. As Group Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Dailey serves as Chief Communications Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer. His responsibilities include external communications and brand public relations, financial communications, media relations, issues and crisis management and executive communications as well as associate communications and engagement; corporate story and KTV – Kroger's visual and digital storytelling team; environmental sustainability and social responsibility, including Kroger's bold social impact plan Zero Hunger | Zero Waste, corporate philanthropy and community relations. He also serves in leadership roles with both The Kroger Co. Foundation and The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation. In recognition of the growing importance of communications and social impact to company culture, he will report to Tim Massa, Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer. Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give Seeks Record Number of Volunteers Volunteer registration for the 2020 Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give is open, and tournament officials say they need more than 1,200 volunteers to ensure the weeklong tournament runs smoothly. The 2020 Meijer LPGA Classic will be held June 8-14 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and will host a full field of 144 of the best women golfers for 72 holes of stroke play over four days of competition. Proceeds from the tournament – and each of the week's festivities – will once again benefit the Meijer Simply Give program that stocks the shelves of food pantries across the Midwest. The 2019 tournament alone raised $1.1 million for local food pantries through Simply Give. In total, the six tournaments have generated more than $5.2 million for the Meijer Simply Give program.

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