About Us
New Leaf
Shop local and support your community and local artists, without whom the world would be a boring place.
Location:
Office located at 4 Grove Street, Schuylerville, NY 12871
Hours: Currently closed location. All sales available online.
Links to Press:
Downtown Susan Brown, Saratogian Newspaper
In the Biz Mareesa Nicosia, Saratogian Newspaper
Daily Gazette, The (Schenectady, NY)
November 8, 2009
Column: SARATOGA SPRINGS
Young business owners drive ahead with spirit
Author: TATIANA ZARNOWSKI
Gazette Reporter
Edition: Schenectady/Albany; Final
Section: B
Page: B1
Article Text:
Every once in a while, some Skidmore College students visit 80 West boutique, take a look around and see a peer in the pretty young woman behind the counter.
And they ask 23-year-old Barbara Macina if she goes to Skidmore.
After she replies "no," this question typically follows: Is this your store?
"People are surprised to find out I'm the owner," said Macina of her women's clothing store on Broadway; she started it on West Circular Street when she was 21.
A new generation of retail business owners is cropping up in downtown Saratoga Springs. Young, hip and full of ambition, these twentysomethings are tackling their dreams in the toughest economic times in generations.
They have no employer-matched retirement plan and most can't afford health insurance.
"It's definitely a risk that I'm taking, but I definitely plan on getting it as soon as possible," Macina said.
Many of them don't s! ee owning their own business as the last stop in their careers.
"I feel like I used it as an initial as opposed to the ultimate" job, said Maria Lentini, 24, who owns -- but is selling -- Lioness Boutique at 5 Spring St.
She's using the vintage consignment store as a stepping stone, and after just over a year in business, Lentini is planning to rent space in the Shoe Depot and sell women's clothing there.
A fashion design major at the Art Institute of New York City and then fashion merchandising major at Miami International University of Art and Design, Lentini said her ultimate job would be as a wardrobe stylist for photo shoots or fashion magazines.
She hopes to work up to that. In the meantime, the energetic Saratoga Springs native can't stay put for long.
"Experience gives you education at the same time, and gives you the how-to," she said of opening her business before completing her degree. "You only learn how to do so! mething by doing it."
Lioness opened on Beekman Stre! et in Se ptember 2008 and moved to Spring Street at the beginning of August.
Macina also took a break from college -- studying to be an elementary school teacher in Tampa, Fla. -- to open her business.
She still wants to teach sometime, just not now.
"I just really wanted to do this," she said of opening the store. "I just kind of said, 'Let's do this.' "
Macina is a Long Island native who moved to Saratoga Springs when she was a junior in high school.
NO PARTY TIME
There are trade-offs to being in your 20s and owning a store.
"All my friends are going out every night," Macina said. "It's hard, but you have to put the work in to succeed."
These young entrepreneurs can't afford to party too much because they're working six or seven days a week at their stores and going on out-of-town buying trips on their time off.
The Girards don't mind.
"I get to work with my best friend, so that's no! t so bad," said Patrick Girard, who with cousin Andrew Girard owns Girard Stoneware at 30 Beekman St. Patrick makes the ceramics and Andrew manages the store, which has been open a little over a year.
"If I wasn't here doing this, I'd still want to be here doing this," Patrick said while trimming a mug on the pottery wheel in his downstairs studio.
The 24-year-old South Glens Falls native has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Green Mountain College in Vermont.
Andrew, 25, of Glens Falls, studied human biology at the University at Albany and also took marketing and business classes that he applies now to his work.
Andrew's father owns the Home Improvement Gallery in South Glens Falls, and other family members also are entrepreneurs.
"We were both finishing school up at about the same time," Andrew said. "It had always been a dream of mine to own my own business."
And Patrick figured he couldn't get a job doing his! art unless he created the job himself.
BOOTSTRAP TI! ME
The economic recession was a surprise for business owners who opened up shop at the beginning of the slowdown last year. But most of them see the bright side of getting started in the worst possible time.
"I guess it gives us an opportunity to see how to run a business in tough economic times," Patrick Girard said. He and his cousin have learned to be conservative with their money.
Macina added, "It can only get better for me, since I opened at such a down time in the economy."
And owning a business definitely has an up side that young people with a 9-to-5 job don't get, like celebrating a big sale day.
Andrew Girard said "Every once in a while, you get to go home and have a White Russian or something."
For Jeromy McFarren, opening his own business at 32 was a way to support a cause -- local artists.
He opened New Leaf, an art gallery and gift boutique, at 30 Beekman St. at the beginning of September.
! "I just think when you support artists, you're supporting the economy," said McFarren, 32.
He sells their work on consignment, reducing his up-front cost and giving artists a chance to make money without the overhead of running their own business. "I'm not doing it to make a ton of money."
He worked as a designer for The Posie Peddler florists for four years, helped start a nonprofit art gallery in Glens Falls, The UpstArt Gallery, and had other jobs doing retail management before striking out on his own in a venture that combines all that experience.
Being single with no children, and possibly having help from parents, gives the young merchants room to take financial risks. "If you have other obligations, I think it gets harder and harder to make that leap of faith," Patrick Girard said.
So they're making it work.
Macina lives with roommates. Lentini holds another job, bartending at Mare Ristorante three nights a week.
"It's your baby," Andrew Girard said of owning a busine! ss. "The business needs to be tended and it needs to be coddled."
Copyright (c) 2009 The Daily Gazette Co. All Rights Reserved.
