SEQUIM — It doesn’t get any more Mom and Pop than this.
David and Megan Schmidlkofer opened Tiny’z Toy Chest on April 1, but they’ve yet to hold a grand-opening celebration because another big event happened the day before Mother’s Day.
Chloe, their third child, was born May 9, into a family business that exists, in part, due to the recession.
Megan has long wanted to open a toy store, but didn’t think she could run it on her own and take care of her kids, especially since her husband was also working long hours as a general contractor.
But she imagined a shop anyway, named after her sons: 2-year-old David junior, also known as Tiny, and 18-month-old Isaiah, who goes by Izzy.
Then winter hit, along with the nation’s economic storm. David senior decided it was time to try something new, something outside the ailing construction industry.
“He said, ‘Go forward,'” with the toy store, Megan said, so she signed a lease on a small space at 149 W. Washington St. and filled it with old-fashioned wooden toys, games and stuffed animals, plus some puzzles that attract some rather big children.
Tiny’z refers to both of their sons’ nicknames, and soon there will be a Chloe’s corner, Megan promised, with playthings for the smallest of customers.
Tiny’z Toy Chest is one of several new, independently owned shops and part of a spring bloom in downtown Sequim. Much like flower baskets, the retailers are brightening Washington Street, Sequim Avenue and Bell Street, banishing some of the recession’s drear with their entrepreneurial energy.
Take the Botanical Touch, another April arrival. Since she was a teenager, Nicole Livengood, a Sequim High School alumnus, had envisioned a shop offering organic teas, medicinal herbs and natural skin-care products. Then her friend Ruth Cadden moved back to town, and the two started planning in earnest.
“All of the doors seemed to open at the right time,” Livengood said. The women got the space they wanted — 115 N. Sequim Ave. across from The Buzz — and put out a table, chairs, flowers and tea samples. The Botanical Touch attracts a varied clientele, from teens to seniors, added Livengood.
She and Cadden used their own money to start the business, since their efforts to secure a bank loan were unsuccessful.
“We were both at a point of change in our lives,” said Livengood, 36. And both chose risk over regret.
“Everyone says, ‘You’re so brave.’ But this is just what I’ve wanted to do.”
The recession and its effect on the job market may well be factors in the flurry of small-business startups, said Vickie Maples, executive director of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce. As people working in major industries receive layoff notices, furloughs or reduced hours, they may reconsider a business idea, she said, and “sometimes, an unfortunate situation gives us an opportunity to do what we really want.”
Yet Maples is no Pollyanna about the new businesses’ prospects. Such entrepreneurs can only hope that summer brings a tide of tourists from across the region and that local people will choose to shop in Sequim rather than Silverdale or Seattle, she said.
There’s help available for business people at any stage, Maples added, from SCORE, a volunteer team of business counselors at www.SCORE.org and from the Clallam County Economic Development Council at 360-457-7793 and www.Clallam.org.
Sequim’s spring budding isn’t over yet.
This Wednesday, Kim’s Cafe, a family-run Vietnamese restaurant, will open at 126 E. Washington St., co-owner Diana Young said Monday. She’ll work with her mother, Kim Thompson, and her cousin Lien Vornbrock, both natives of Vietnam, and specialize in pho, a traditional beef and rice noodle soup, along with summer rolls, stir-fried noodles and other Southeast Asian dishes.
“Vietnamese food is completely different from Chinese or Thai,” Young said. “Hopefully, we will fill a niche in Sequim.”
And on Thursday, Pane D’Amore of Port Townsend is expected to open its Sequim bake shop. Founder Frank D’Amore will be ready at 8 a.m. with more than a dozen varieties of bread fresh from his Port Townsend ovens, plus Parisian-style pastries.
Facing Washington Street just east of Fifth Avenue, this bake shop will be a traditional biennoiserie, with croissants and Danish made with the richest butter available and local eggs, promised co-owner Linda Yakush. The artisan bread trade, she added, has transcended the recession so far.
“People want to treat themselves,” she said, to a pastry rather than a plane ticket.
Another new small business, this one a little outside downtown, is preparing to supply some more of that indulgence. Chocolate Serenade on South Fifth Avenue is primarily a wholesale operation, but its confections will debut June 20 at the Sequim Open Aire Market, owner Jim Queen said. Queen, who recently moved to Sequim from North Bend to be closer to family, will be among the dozens of other local artists, producers and farmers who set up on West Cedar Street from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Saturday throughout the summer.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
