With Father's Day rapidly approaching we want to talk to you seriously about your Dad and his mailbox.

Consider the items your father typically receives in the mail:

1. Bills.
2. Maybe your bills.
3. Coupon booklets - coldly addressed to "Current Resident" even though he's lived there for 23 years. 
4. Cleaning reminders from his dentist.
5. Invitations to subscribe to "You're Old Now" magazines. 

Depressing, isn't it? You can help. You can give your Dad a gift that is worthy of his presence. 

Snake Bite Co. has partnered with Greetabl to offer what can easily be considered the best thing your Dad will ever get in the mail. (Considering the list, it's not hard to compete - but still...) In case you don't know about Greetabl - here's the deal: Greetabl is a St. Louis based company and their product is 100% sourced and made in America. It's like we're fraternal twins! Their custom fold-able, mail-able, and joy giving gift boxes have been on the scene since 2012 and we've been customers from the beginning. We're thrilled to have finally "snaked" our way into a Greetabl ourselves! 

This Father's Day you can send your Dad the Original Snake Bite forked church key bottle opener with more ceremony than our typical luxury yellow bubble mailers. If you do the right thing, your Dad will receive a box in the mail that holds that amazing package in the center-and inside of that package will be our most popular Original Snake Bite in brown leather.

Dad might be wary at first, as he has most likely never received a package in the mail that he did not order himself, but once he opens the box he will see your personalized message and cry pure tears of joy. 

...and they HAND WRITE your message!  Do you even write with your actual hands anymore? 

PRO TIP: If you're planning on seeing Dad on Father's Day, be sure to bring a 6-pack of his favorite brew. Vent cans. Make memories. 

While you're enjoying your most successful Father's Day gift giving to date, be sure to get a good shot to share on social media, because if it's not on Instagram, it didn't happen. Tag us, @snakebitecousa & @greetabl so we can wish your Dad a happy Father's Day! 

Go forth Snake Biters - bring joy!

As the face of retail continues to transform, stores are becoming more and more a reflection of the individuals who run the business. We sat down with Chhun Tang, owner of East Fork Supply Co., to talk about how he merged his passions to create a space that is part motorcycle shop, part art gallery and one hundred percent original.

Tell us a little about East Fork Supply Co., how you got started, and your role there?

Honestly, starting the business was a complete accident. I started East Fork Supply Co. as the sole owner back in 2012. I moved into a loft space that had living space on the upper floors and a business space on bottom. I had no intention of opening anything at first, but I had to take that chance, the opportunity to do open something was too good to pass up. And when it came down to the type of store I was going to open, I listened to my gut and made it a store that was all about my lifestyle.

What was your inspiration in creating your space?

I decided to keep to the things I really knew about.  I gravitated towards art, design, photography, outdoors and motorcycles. Those are the things that I love and building the store and its core philosophy around what I know made too much sense. All around the store, you’ll find elements of those things. We always have art or photography from local artists on the walls that fall in line with the overall look of the store. There’s a motorcycle out front, helmets on the shelves and trail maps posted. It has a more casual, blue collar vintage industrial look because it’s more inviting and low key. The vintage props and display pieces add that sense of familiarity and nostalgia.  In the last few years, I’ve gotten more into the outdoors and motorcycles, because that’s something I personally have gotten more interested in.  

Motorcycle gear and culture seems to be an important part of your business.  How does that influence your store as a whole?

It’s important, but it’s only a part of it and not what truly defines the store. It plays a role within the whole brand because it’s one of the things I do. It’s just much more visible, because we do our monthly event where guys ride over and hang out and that has become really popular right now. The people who do ride are usually passionate about it and the community as a whole is pretty tight knit. Those two aspects of passion and community are common themes that are shared with everything else we do. We carry one brand of performance motorcycle gear (http://www.eastforksupplyco.com/collections/motorcycle-gear) and accessories and also some motorcycle inspired stuff, but we’re by no means a motorcycle shop.

What influences your decision making process when deciding to carry new brands?

I’ve been around and seen a lot of brands that are well branded and well marketed, but aren’t great products.  So, first of all, it has to be a great product that functions well and is built to last. Local is even better and made in the US, that’s ideal, that’s perfect.  Not everything we carry meets those guidelines, but if it’s a really great product that fits within our lifestyle and the context, we’ll make exceptions.  We’re a small business and we want to support other small businesses as well, so we look for small brands. We want to carry products that help to make the store unique, because if we’re carrying the same things as everyone else, people might as well go to the mall across the street from us.

Could you walk us through why you decided to carry the Snake Bite?

We brought Snake Bite in for a few reasons actually. Accessories sell really well for us, whether someone is buying something for themselves or as a gift. Key chain accessories specifically, have been doing really well. At the time we weren’t carrying any type of bottle openers, let alone openers that were also key chain accessories. Snake Bite is an interesting twist on the classic bottle opener, it’s a simple quality product, it’s made in the US, the aesthetics of the brand matches ours and they really wanted to work with us.

What inspires you to keep doing what you are doing on a daily basis?

Seeing the business grow, and meeting interesting people continues to intrigue me.  

People come into the store and say things like “What a great place, I’m glad there’s a cool men’s shop in the area.” That gives me a sense of satisfaction and affirmation that I’m doing something right, which makes me want to build on that. I’m a creator and builder at my core. As an art director, I used to build brands for other people and now I’m able to do that for myself. Also, I see the store, its brand and our monthly events grow and to a small degree, it’s like watching your kids grow.

I also get to meet amazing people, create bonds and have a chance to work with a lot of great people. To date I’ve met restaurant owners, bike builders I’ve admired for years, a brewer, a magician, artists and crafts persons and that’s just to name a few.

How would you define success as it relates to your business and what do you think has contributed to that success?

At the moment, growth. Having only been open for two and a half years, I knew we weren’t going to have people filling up the store everyday with things flying off the shelves. I understood that it had to start slow and would hopefully pick up. So the key is growth. Not just financially, although that’s important as well, but more in terms of what the overall store is about. By growing the community around the store and its influence in the industry, I know the financial aspect will take care of itself.

On a personal level, which relates to the business, I have to grow as a business owner who’s learning how to run a retail store with no prior experience in doing so.

My experience with branding and strategy as an art director, my personal aesthetics and passions, my friendly and approachable personality and my determination have played roles in the success of the store thus far. People want to help good people and I’ve been lucky that people want to support me and help me succeed.

Tell me a bit about Project Connect and how it relates to your retail business?

Through the store, I’ve become connected with so many different people. I understand that neither myself nor the store exists in a vacuum, we’re part of a larger connected community. I’ve thought about that a lot lately and wanted do a project around that idea. It doesn’t necessarily sell any products, instead it’s more about celebrating the people who I’ve been fortunate to come into contact with who have made the store possible and has shaped what it’s become. So my photographer friend Nick Miramontes came up with the idea of shooting all the different people in a way in which we kept it simple to focus on the person and who they are. All of the photos are online http://www.eastforksupplyco.com/blogs/project-connect and we encourage people to download them. In the long-term, we’re going to print them all and wallpaper one of the walls of the store. It’s a way to make our customers feel more like a part of the store.

Where do you see your brand and business going in the future?

Retail, business in general, has changed. You can’t just open your doors and expect people to walk through the door and buy things. So understanding that, along with my experience with branding and strategy, I’ve made a big effort to make the store about community, lifestyle and relationships. And oh, by the way, we sell some really great products that are a part of that lifestyle. As I’ve learned more and more about buying and figuring things out, our selection of products just gets better and better.

We’ll continue to build on our relationships with our customers through our monthly Coffee + Donuts event, do more group hiking trips and later on this year we’ll be launching a club named the East Fork Society, details of which are a secret at the moment. We’re also looking to do some more collaborations with other brands, artists and interesting people.

All of those things help us integrate more into a person’s life. While we may not be Apple or Google which are ingrained into a person’s life, we want to the first place they think of when they want to buy something that we have that fits their need.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in specialty retail?

Go into an area they’re passionate about. If it’s something they’re really into, they’ll know a lot about it and a lot of people who are part of that culture and also come off to a customer as someone with credibility. Use all of their resources to their advantage. Most people have friends and family that are more than willing to help. Don’t be afraid to ask so that they can use their skills and strengths as an advantage. When I started the business, I was hesitant to ask my friends to help. I’ve had to learn to use my network of people and tap into those resources.

For more about East Fork Supply Co, visit http://www.eastforksupplyco.com/

Menswear has many facets, from fabrics to construction, style to audience. An often ignored, but crucial component to all menswear retail environments is story-telling.  In order to sell a product, not only do you have to present something that’s visually appealing to the consumer, but you also have to provide them with a scenario where they would wear that item. East + West, a menswear store in St. Louis, Missouri, understands the importance of connecting the consumer with their products. Today, we spoke with store owner Brian Simpson about his high-quality, authentic offerings and his desire to create community.

Tell us a little about East and West, how you got started, and your role there?

I own East and West with my wife Lauren. We opened it in 2012, so almost 3 years ago. Really, at the heart of it, it’s a men’s lifestyle shop.  We try to bring in brands and products that we believe in, and ones that we think tell a story and give value for what you’re paying.  We definitely like to emphasize products that are made in the USA, but not all of our products are.

What made you decide to feature items for men in your store?

It’s something that’s always been an interest, hobby and passion of mine. A lot of things I was interested in I couldn’t get access to in St. Louis, so I ended up eventually going to New York or Chicago or San Francisco to shop. There is such a renaissance happening in menswear, and I felt like on a small scale, St. Louis could be a part of that. With the internet, blogging and social media, there’s no reason for St. Louis to be behind the rest of the country when it comes to offering great, unique fashion for men.   

You focus on brands that aren’t readily available at other stores in our area.  What is your process to locate a brand that’s a good fit for your customers?

Honestly, I start with things that I’ve worn or would like to wear myself. Like anything that interests you and that you get involved with, I began to read and research. Through that process, one product would lead to another. I’d find the jeans that fit me the best, and that would lead to a sweater that was great which led me to find my favorite sweatshirts and the shoes that worked well for me. I just kept finding all these little designers across the country that worked really well for me.  It seemed they all had these great urban underground followings. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the Punk music scene, years ago. You’d find a great band from New York or somewhere, and they’d come to St. Louis and maybe only 100 kids would know about them and come to the show, but everyone of those kids was a passionate supporter.   

I really focus on finding items and brands that are using amazing fabrics and construction and there’s a lot of great stuff out there. You may be paying $150 for a sweatshirt, but there’s a reason why, and you can totally tell the difference between an item we carry and something you might find at a more mainstream, low-cost store.  

Tell us about your customers.

I describe our average customer as the creative professional. They range from 25 to 50 and usually work in some sort of creative industry.  Not always the case, but usually. We do get some female shoppers for their male counterparts.  

Could you walk us through why you decided to carry the Snake Bite?

We really try to focus on giving our customers a cross-culture experience. I definitely think that guys who are interested in presenting themselves in a certain way in terms of how they put together an outfit, a lot of those same guys are also into the craft industry, in terms of beer and food and music and things like that. There’s a lot of overlap. Instead of regurgitating a lot of information that’s already out there, we try to bring new, less conventional things to people that we think might be of interest to them in another sector of their lives. We see a pattern that a lot of our customers love craft beers, so naturally a key chain that focused on craft beer and had a nice aesthetic and is made in St. Louis, it was just all woven together to be a good product for us to carry.It makes sense for us, because in addition to carrying clothes, we also throw parties where we focus on local restaurants, bars and mixologists, so the craft beer market is very much integrated into our business.

Tell us a little bit more about the events you host and why you decided to incorporate that as part of your business?

At the heart of what we want to do is build relationships with people across the city, even if it’s on a small community level. I think one of the best ways to facilitate that is providing events for people to get together and meet people they maybe wouldn't have met before. We also showcase some of the things we’re most stoked about around town, so we usually feature local restaurants and djs and things like that.  We just want to facilitate people getting together and building community, building relationships and networking culturally and out of that, get people working together to impact our city.

What inspires you to keep doing what you are doing on a daily basis?

If I was in this to sell clothes, I wouldn't have survived, nor would I have continued to be interested in it. I love to create and I love to work with people and build relationships and push myself. My wife and I are committed to being here long-term and East and West is one of the ways we thought we could improve the Greater St. Louis area while doing something that was of interest to us and that we are skilled at doing. That’s what keeps me going, continuing to see what evolves the business. I just love meeting new people and it’s inspiring to see all the awesome things going on around town and to be a part of that. What Dan and Kevin are doing with Snake Bite is a great example of that, to see them start the business and see what a great reception it has had around town and the buzz that it’s created, it’s inspiring. I think it’s really neat to see how people are continuing to make St. Louis a place worth not only coming to, but sticking around.

How would you define success as it relates to your business and what do you think has contributed to that success?

We definitely have immediate and long-term goals for the business. However, at the end of the day, if we can make an impact in the city from what we do, I would deem that as a success. If we can make a positive impact in building relationships and creating community, it doesn't matter how long we’d be in business for, whether it’s 5 years or 50 years, that would be a success for me.  

In terms of what we want to do, tangibly, we’d love to have a location in the city, that’s one of our next goals. I’d say we’d love to establish a strong St. Louis presence, and then we’re always open to doing something else, but first and foremost we’re focused on the greater St. Louis area.  We’re also continuing to expand our online presence as well.

You offer many brands that are Made In America- why is that important to you?

Really our inspiration between offering products made here in America is that we just like to know the people we’re working with.  We like to know the story behind the brand and the product and understand what we’re getting. It’s really rooted in how I did my own shopping.  I was okay with spending $200 on a pair of jeans as long as I knew the quality I was getting and the people behind it.  One of the neat things is that now a lot of the brands I work with I’ve built relationships with.  I know the owners or the designers and I know the reasons behind why they do certain things and it’s turned from business relationships to friendships. It’s really cool to work with people where not only do I believe in the product I’m selling, but am also happy to be supporting their livelihood. I think that’s really impactful about having that connection with that brand or that product that you’re working with. Snake Bite is a great story. I’ve known Dan for 15 years, and now I get to sell his product and provide income for him and vice versa for me.

I think it’s absolutely easier to sell a product when you have a connection to it. Most people either have not seen or are not familiar with most of the things we carry because they are smaller brands and they don’t have a lot of exposure. At the end of the day, if I don’t have that connection to a brand, or don’t have that story understanding why it’s worth what it is, then people won’t buy it or invest in it, so that’s why I think it’s critical.

Learn more about East + West here:

http://eastandweststl.com/

In the past few months, we've been excited to partner with some truly unique and innovative business owners. Businesses that are really changing the face of boutique shopping. On this interview we sat down with Brent Oberlink from Dapper Gents Grooming Lounge, a vintage-inspired barber shop that features domestically made menswear items. We discussed the inspiration for their business and what makes this old school/modern fusion work for them.

Tell us a little about Dapper Gents Grooming Lounge, how you got started, and your role there?

I’m the owner; basically owner and entrepreneur. I own another business as well and I travel a lot.  When I was traveling, I fell in love with the idea of a barber shop that was like grandpa’s barber shop, but with more of a modern twist. I couldn’t find anything like that in St. Louis, so I decided to start one. Dapper Gents is the place where you can still get your straight shaves, can still get all the classic cuts, and styling too. We’re not only a barber shop, we employ stylists as well. The barber shop side of Dapper Gents is an old school and modern fusion.

What inspired you to combine a barber shop with a retail space?

On the menswear side, we were originally just going to do leather goods. We went to a Las Vegas fashion show, and while there we decided that we wanted to add sports coats and shirts. Everything on the menswear side is made in the USA. Our leather goods in particular are made in St. Louis or in the midwest. We differentiate ourselves from other menswear shops by having local items. Our merchandise is hand-picked and many of the items are handmade, so it creates a whole different atmosphere. We carry craftsmen menswear, and you can feel and see the quality in each item.  

Are there specific products that you’ve found to be especially successful in your unique retail environment?

The Original Snake Bite is one of the most successful items we carry, I think in part due to the media blitz and social media surrounding it. The pick up has been really good. Another line that has been really successful for us is Shinola. They are a watch company that started in Detroit a few years ago. They are a leather goods watch maker, and they actually also make bicycles. All of their items are handmade in Detroit in a little factory. They do a tremendous job of social media advertising and have blown up big time in recent years. Another really successful line for us is Rawlings out of St. Louis. Everyone is familiar with them for making leather baseball gloves, but the also make leather bags, wallets and other leather items. We carry a line of theirs that is made in St. Genevieve.  

Do you have a consumer in mind when you make decisions about what products you will carry?

We are in the loft district downtown, so a lot of our consumers are between the ages of 25 and 40. The other group of our folks are the businessmen who work downtown. For the most part, everything falls in those categories. We don’t have that many people who drive in from other areas; its mostly the loft residents.  

Could you walk us through why you decided to carry the Snake Bite?

Right off the bat, the fact that it is a leather item, that struck our fancy a little bit in the beginning.  Snake Bite has also done an awesome job staying on the ball. They are always quick to respond to requests. The other factor that influenced us is that they are a local St. Louis company, a newer start up, and we like to promote things that are from St. Louis.

You also offer “pop-up shops.”  Can you tell us a little bit about those, and what it adds to the experience for your customers?

Basically everything that we carry in store is ready to walk out and wear. We’ve had a lot of customers request custom stuff. Bespoke Apparel has a shop out in Town and Country and they approached us to have a pop-up shop on the weekends. They come into our store and bring all of their pattern swatches and they offer complete custom tailoring. So, you come in, get fitted and they bring you back a suit or a shirt in about a month. We started that about three weeks ago and it’s been very well received.  

What made you decide to offer memberships and what are the benefits your members receive?

We created memberships as a loyalty program. Many of our customers come in on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.  We wanted to give the guys that were in their that often some sort of a discount. We offer three levels, targeted towards how often the client comes in. We know that our prices are considerably more than other places to get your haircut, but you are really paying for the experience once you get there.  

What is the next big thing we should expect from Dapper Gents Grooming Lounge?

In 2015, because we’re so new, our biggest thing right now is to continue to get established in the city. We are going to Vegas (for a fashion show) next month, so there might be some new items in the menswear side that we bring on. In the short term, we’re going to try to liven up the menswear side a little more with more of the items that have been well received.  For us, that’s been the leather goods and locally made accessory items.

What takeaway would you want people to know about Dapper Gents?

One of the key items that makes us stand apart is our ambiance. That’s a word I hear a lot from customers. We create that by the way we display things and the items we have in the shop. Our barber chairs are a great example of that: they are over 100 years old and were originally made in St. Louis before 1920. We found them scattered all throughout the country, bought them, refurbished them and they look brand new, but bring that vintage feel. With our furnishings & our lounge, we've created what is very much a man’s world.  

Another thing that makes us stand out is our straight razor shaves. We offer something that died out years ago and only a few select places still do them. Most barbers don’t actually have a straight razor license. Almost everyone in our shop has a straight razor license, so it has been a huge sales point for us.

Learn more about Dapper Gents Grooming Lounge here:

http://dappergentsgrooming.com/

There’s an intersection between history, art and retail, and within that small space is a very special place called the Great Republic. This truly original shop features everything from a first edition copy of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” to a Civil War-era American flag to American-made steel dinner bells. We spoke with store founder Eddie Papczun about his Colorado Springs store and his upcoming shop in Washington DC. We discussed how his passion for antiques and his dedication to Made in the USA items set the stage to create a once-in-a-lifetime shopping experience.

Tell us a little about The Great Republic, how you got started, and your role there?

I’m the founder of the business. I have a background in specialty retail. I founded a golf antiques business back in 1995 called Golf Links To the Past which was out of a shop in Pebble Beach. I have an affinity to creating unique retail experiences and it was always my intention to get back into specialty retail, but in a way that wasn't being done anywhere else that I had ever seen. I wanted to really focus on a great shopping experience for men, because I've always felt that men don’t have a lot of great shopping experiences.

I didn't want it to be an apparel shop, there are plenty of menswear clothing stores out there, so I didn't have any interest in that at all. I leveraged my love of history and the antique and a passion for searching, finding and partnering with boutique manufacturers to create an American experience, a celebration of America. We celebrate America in antiquity with antiques and unique items that you will not see anywhere else, but then we also celebrate America in handcrafted goods. I love that young people seem to have a real connection to crafting things with their hands and there seems to be a real movement where entrepreneurly-minded individuals are creating really cool made in America items that are a great fit for the Great Republic. That’s how I approach this business model, we are certainly an antique shop in a sense, but not in any traditional sense, and we also have this wonderful collection of handcrafted US goods.

Clearly locating unique and authentic items is a large part of your business. How do you go about sourcing and authenticating new items for your store?

You turn a lot of rocks over and sooner or later you’ll find something really unique and interesting. The items are floating around out there, we find things at a lot of auctions and estate sales. The items find me, because I've been in the business so long, so someone will tell someone and I’ll get a phone call out of the blue. Often, clients end up becoming suppliers. Certainly I do a lot of work searching on the internet for specific items. I know that American Pickers and Antique Roadshow are quite popular, I will tell you that is not my model. I’m not at sales every weekend hoping to find a diamond in the rough, it’s very difficult. You could go to 15 flea markets and not find anything, so I don’t do that at all. I know what I’m looking for and the big thing is once I get it I know how to present it in such a way that it’s going to resonate with our client base. We really put a lot into presentation, if you walk through the Great Republic, you wouldn't think of it as an antique shop, we’re really more of an art gallery that’s all handcrafted goods. For the unique items we carry that are made in the US, I go to trade shows. I’m trying to find that one guy in a little 10 by 10 booth and trying to see if that product will resonate with my client base and end up getting part of the product connection.

When I started the Great Republic I opened initially at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and I got a great space. It’s a 5 star, 5 diamond property. The thing I said about the Broadmoor was, that was my beta test, and I’m throwing spaghetti at the refrigerator to see if it will stick. I took all of the lessons learned in the last 20 months, and I’m applying those to how I do the product mix for the upcoming DC store, which is going to be much more visible store because of the location. We’ll be in a shopping complex that features Salvatore Ferragamo, Carolina Herrera, Canali, all of the great brands, luxury brands. My next door neighbor is Tom Colicchio’s pastry chef from his flagship, she’s opened her own little shop called Rare Sweets, and so I think of her as a kindred spirit, because we’re kind of the small, entrepreneurial small businesses in this sea of luxury goods.

You offer such a wide variety of items, from original books to Made In America soaps. What makes you decide something is a good fit for The Great Republic?

I serve as the curator and the buyer for the shop. At the end of the day, I trust my own taste, if I like it, I figure it’s a good fit for the shop. My big misstep, and it’s not really a big one, but my misstep was that I brought in a lot of grooming products initially into the Broadmoor store, and we found that though grooming does sell, I think the consumer has a lot of options on that front. When we go into DC, you’ll see a much smaller, slimmed down section. We’ll still have grooming, but it’s going to be more unique and we’re not going to try to create a whole grooming section per say, we’re just going to blend in some grooming. 

Could you walk us through why you decided to carry the Snake Bite?

I saw the product and just immediately thought this is the perfect kind of product to put at your point of sale. It’s a entry price point for us and it’s an easy walk-away item. People come into the shop and they have such a spiritual connection to what’s going on in there, but sometimes they just can’t afford the things that are hanging on the wall or sitting on the table. Something like the Snake Bite opener, that’s an item that anyone can pick up. I see it as an item that someone can take away as a remembrance of the Great Republic. It’s just one of those cool, Made In America items that I love.

What inspires you to keep doing what you are doing on a daily basis?

I’m married to an Air Force general, and I’m a former Air Force officer myself, so our life is a fairly fluid situation. We’re constantly moving and we’re going to move again this summer. For me, I had to create something for myself that got me excited about getting up every morning and I feel blessed that I have this love and passion for retail and history and cool products and cool designs. I marry all of those loves and passions together and I have these stores. I don’t live near my Colorado store, or my DC store unless my wife gets transferred over there. I have to be an owner in absence, and sometimes that’s a little frustrating, because I’d like to be able to walk in the shop and get a state of how it’s going. But I just love it, I’m excited about getting up in the morning and figuring out, how do I make that experience better for the consumer. Everyone that comes into the Great Republic is just blown away, there’s nothing like it. I've married together a lot of different disciplines here and so you’ll see shops that are good at elements of what my shop represents, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a shop that brought it all together under one thing and has this patriotic component to it.

I’m working with the architects in DC right now and our expectation is to create one of the great shopping experiences in America. We’re going to raise the bar ourselves because of the clientele we’ll attract in that space, because of the surrounding shops and the amount of energy that’s gone into making that a success. I think of DC as home, we still own a condo there, so for me to see the city that I've adopted get this great shopping experience, and that I’ll be part of it, it’s pretty cool. I’m very excited and feel extremely blessed to be where I am at the moment.

You are expanding to Washington DC this Spring- do you hope to have additional locations in the future?

I think in the near-term I see myself focusing on the two stores we have, and just building the brand a bit more and getting some press about it. Down the road I would always entertain putting a store in the right situation, and that’s crucial. I won’t do it to just do it, I would never expand this business just for the sake of expanding it. I think if we could be in the right situation, I’d absolutely consider that. It has be the right situation and we have to be sensitive to controlling the growth so that we don’t grow beyond our capacity to deliver a great experience to the consumer.

Let’s get the DC store up and running, get the right people to go there to manage it and run and you know I’m open to have those conversations. We’re not J Crew, you’re not going to find one in every major metropolitan city in the United States.

The Great Republic supports the Made In America movement. Why do you think this is important for the future of retail in our country?

I think you look at the political landscape and the foreign policy landscape at the moment and I think it gives a lot of Americans pause. They see that we've outsourced our manufacturing capacity to countries that are not necessarily overly friendly to us. So we are global trading partners and we do business with these different entities, and I think a lot Americans are kind of fed up, and they want to find items that are made in our country.

I just think that a lot of Americans will pay the extra; they’re tired of buying mass-produced items coming from abroad. It’s nice to see that companies like Snake Bite doing things that show a passion for the production of the item, the design of the item and giving the consumer a really cool experience where they can say, yes, this is made in the US, it’s made in America.

We’re big proponents of the movement. Unfortunately, there are some great items out there, but you ask where their manufacturing is and they said it’s offshore, and that’s it for us. We just don’t go there. And I get it, I understand, they’re trying to have a competitive price point and if you’re someone, you’re trying to get in a large retail you need to be able to come in and be competitive on price, but we are a specialty store, so we are going to embrace the small, hand-crafted vendors like and Snake Bite.

That’s just who we are. If someone looks at one of our items, it’s made in America, and we think that counts for a lot. Made in America is a premium worth paying for, in my opinion, and that’s what we’re about, celebrating America.

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