This week's cover story on indie businesses in the suburbs and city of Philadelphia.
-ED

Open-door policy
Timing, creativity and quality help small business owners hold their own among the chains.

By Martin Kerrigan
Philly EDGE Correspondent

With this year’s shopping season in high gear, mobs of surly shoppers will flood the big box retailers and stampede through the malls. Avoiding the mainstream current is as easy as shopping independent. The following shops and venues offer innovation, expertise and a breath of fresh air that reminds us that treasures await beyond the strip mall.
Building your livelihood from the ground up can be a struggle, especially since the success of your operation has yet to be proven. When Todd Hiestand’s father saw the dilapidated machine shop that would soon host the venue known as The Well, all he could say to his son was “Well, it’s a good thing you’re young.”
Another architectural miracle was needed to wake the Ambler Theatre from its 20-year nap. While the original main stage is still behind curtain, waiting to be unveiled, two brand new screening rooms had to be constructed.
For some, sex and ice cream solicit the same response. Stuart Schlaffman decided that latter was his next logical business step after struggling with his Hillary’s Ice Cream franchise for over two years. “It turns out that people wanted low-fat yogurt,” he said. Intrigued by the high profit and personal interest in the sex industry, he immediately created Condom Kingdom; an elaborately decorated outlet for all things prophylactic, followed by the upscale sex shop, The Mood.
Industry slumps can take a chunk out of the little guy who doesn’t have the advantage of a 15,000-store base or a few billion in the bank. When 15 percent of all Internet surfers started illegally downloading tracks in 1999, Main Street Music’s Pat Feeney felt the bite. “It’s hard enough to keep the prices down, and downloading certainly doesn’t help,” he said. “Technology has definitely been a problem,” he said regarding the advent of high speed connections, CD burners and the general normalization of stealing music files.
But timing is everything. What helped this Manayunk music store owner get off to a solid start was his ability to set up shop right before the area’s hip scene exploded.
Bucks County Coffee Co. slid in the door just as cafes and specialty coffees boomed. It rode the caffeinated wave from a small location in Yardley to over 35 stores from Washington D.C. to New Jersey with the help of CEO Jeffrey Larson.
Chain stores tend to rely on the reputation of their familiar logos to insinuate the quality of their products. Indies don’t have that luxury and therefore must put the emphasis on the sheer excellence of their goods. If you can rise to the occasion, according to Larson, you can sell superior products. Because Bucks County Coffee Co. focuses on high-end coffee, Larson says it can pick the cream of the crop. “Chains have to be indiscriminant,” Larson explains; because of their sheer size, most can’t afford the best brew and must settle for second bean.
If you’re searching for a similarly unique flavor in motion pictures you know that 26-theater multiplexes don’t exactly specialize in fresh concepts. The Ambler Theater’s nonprofit status keeps brainless popcorn flicks off the projector to make room for the classic, indie, foreign, educational and beyond. Multiplexes barely bother with these genres due to their political bents, lack of “star power” or a lack of interest from the mainstream audience. If they saw mobs that sell out the Ambler almost every Friday and Saturday, perhaps they’d reconsider.
A venue that literally has more soul than behemoth arenas is The Well in Feasterville. This art gallery/concert hall/ Protestant church - and in January, coffee bar- is run by Todd Hiestand and Brad Jackson. These two young pastors wanted to create “a resource for the artist and music community” as well as a place of worship. Fundraisers for the war-ravaged youth of Uganda are just one of their selfless services. The Well successfully avoids conformity by hosting the chillest gigs and elaborate art shows.
Ambience is important to any business, that is, unless you’re selling farm supplies or running a garage sale. These indies excel at creating a one-of-a-kind atmosphere that complements their goods. The 50s-era sign that serves as the Ambler Theater’s beacon guides movie-goers through the stretched lobby toward the soothing burgundy and gold interior. The grandiose main theater is Managing Director Ross Grieve’s pride and joy. The 300-seat room, complete with organ pits and original, hand-carved woodwork, will be restored soon.
A similar sense of awe strikes you upon entering Condom Kingdom, where dozens of three-foot-long, foam muppet sperm seem to dash overhead from the phallus-shaped doorway to a domed egg in the store’s rear. Custom-made faux-rocks serve as shelves for all things prophylactic.
Let’s face it; sometimes large corporations can be antiseptic - you might not get one-on-one product advice or recommendations. When businesses are smaller, the service becomes more personalized. Regular customers and the handful of employees become friends, and almost instantly you’ve got a personalized service that can’t be beat. Owners recognize this and only hire new recruits with expertise. “You’ve got to love music if you want to work here,” said Feeney of his Manayunk shop. Its main customers that he categorizes as hardcore music lovers rely on that expertise to steer their purchases toward audio bliss. While visiting a sex shop can be a little more stressful for some, Condom Kingdom’s Schlaffman holds his employees to high standard: they need to be experienced, hard working and gentle when helping customers find, ahem, “the product that fits.”
That level of customer service might be a stretch for a bigger company.

Addresses:

Bucks County Coffee Co.
Many locations

Main Street Music
4444 Main St. Philadelphia (in Manayunk)
215.487.7732

Ambler Theater
108 E Butler Ave, Ambler
215.345.7855

The Well
1631 Loretta Ave., Feasterville
215.364.5288

The Mood
531 South St., Philadelphia
215.413.1930