If you ask a business owner in Northern Kentucky why it is such a good area to open a business, everyone always says the people and support of the community.
Some people may think a big city like Cincinnati would make a better location to run a successful business. Still, people on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River have to disagree.
Ale Lewis owns Glow Salon in Dayton, Kentucky. She said she gets the best of both worlds.
“We get that small city feel,” Lewis said. “Everybody that comes in from Dayton is like, I know your husband, I know your mother-in-law. It’s the small-town feel. I go over to the coffee shop; they know my coffee order. I love it. But we’re five minutes from Cincinnati.”
Lewis said she knew she wanted to own her salon since she was in hair school, and they asked her what she wanted to do with her schooling in the future.
“I like to be in charge of my own things, and I like to do my own thing,” Lewis said. “I started off at a full-service salon. It was great. I’ve met an amazing clientele. I learned a lot in a couple of years, and I decided to branch out on my own.”
Lewis rented a suite with one of her friends, and she loved the one-on-one it provided to her and her clients. The suite allowed her to make her schedule and oversee her clientele, which let her to be flexible as a mom with two small children.
“There’s a coffee shop across the street here that is from Honduras, and I’m actually from Honduras,” Lewis said. “So one day, when I finally got brave enough, I packed up my double stroller with both my kids and walked two miles to the coffee shop. I’m sitting outside, and the building across the street had a sign that said, ‘For Sale By Owner,’ and I, for whatever reason, got it in me that I was going to reach out to the owner. I called and come to find out this used to be a salon years ago. So, I was like, okay, kind of, you know, getting some signs, so I came and looked at it the next day. I saw the potential, and my husband and I decided to purchase the building.”
Lewis said the owner of Unataza Coffee in Dayton is the person who told her she had to move her business to Dayton and Lewis said she was very supportive during the process.
Lewis opened shop in November 2021.
Jeff Winkle co-owns Jeff & John Winkle Studio in Ludlow, Kentucky, with his twin brother, John. A sense of home is why he and his brother chose to move back to their childhood city of Ludlow from Glendale, Ohio, to start their art studio.
“It’s a little bit smaller community, and because we’re born and bred in Kentucky, it just felt more right,” Jeff Winkle said. “It felt more like home or like community for us versus, say, Ohio, anything like that where there was already some stuff going for revitalization and all that was just way too expensive. Glendale was way too expensive. Some of those other towns were much further advanced during the time, and Ludlow was still more reasonable, and we could get in. So that was helpful, and it felt like home.”
Before opening their dream studio Jeff Winkle was doing freelance graphic design, which he still does, and his brother John owned a landscaping company for 23 years.
Both brothers earned degrees from Eastern Kentucky University. While they both started in graphic design, Jeff was the one who got the degree in that field. John switched majors and earned his degree in painting and sculpture.
“John and I would go to lunch every now and then, and he would talk about how he wanted to get back into art. He didn’t feel like he was doing what he was kind of meant to do,” Jeff said. “One time, we went to a Friendly Stop in Glendale, and right before that, I went and saw a place that was for sale in Glendale. And I was like, oh gosh, wouldn’t it be so cool if thisÂ-we were a little bit of dreamersÂ- wouldn’t it be cool to start an art studio in a little town.”
The Winkle brothers bought their studio in 2014, and John sold his landscaping company in 2016 to do art full time.
Though John now works at the studio full time, Jeff said he would like the business to come to a financially stable point to quit his graphic design business and exclusively run the studio.
Running your own business doesn’t come without hardships.
“As far as Northern Kentucky goes, it’s just a matter of really getting your name out there,” Winkle said. “I think that’s with any business, especially in the art field. You got to get eyeballs on your work. You got to build, and you got to keep building. We’re in the process of still building a sustainable art business.”
For Lewis, renovating her building has been the most challenging part.
“I had a lot of unexpected issues with the building,” Lewis said. “It was like every single time that I turned around; it was like, okay, we’ve got to redo all the electric, and then I would turn around and be like, ‘oh, the price of lumber has gone up.’ We had to spend $2,000 on lumber so we can do this to the ceiling, and then I would turn around and be like, ‘Oh, there’s a hole on the floor.'”
Meanwhile, Lewis was working on a time crunch with her lease running out on the suite she was renting at the time.
Both entrepreneurs agree that what it takes to run your own business is perseverance.
“Do not give up,” Lewis said. “It’s going to be rough, and there’s going to be tears, and there’s been a lot of stressful moments. It’s a lot. The process to get it open and to get it here, and right now, it’s just me. I have another stylist that’s going to be starting here soon, but it’s been just me. So, you know, working long hours to try to fit everybody in and still do my inventory and be a mom. I have another job too. But definitely don’t give up because it’s worth it.”
Winkle agrees.
“You have to be able to stick to it,” Winkle said. “You have to be able to adapt. Finding creative ways to make ends meet and then build it over time. I feel like everything looks so instant to people because of social media. It’s just not that way; it takes time.”
