Small businesses offer shopping alternative

By Michael Loffredo
Bengal News West Reporter

Oh the holiday shopping season is upon us.

Long lines at the most popular stores.

Great deals that even Santa couldn’t make up.

The most popular products fly off the shelves and your wallet takes a hit.

What if there was a way to shop in a quiet, elegant, unique store without all of the hustle and bustle? —Oh wait, there is!

The boutique crawl is just one of the events throughout the year that helps the many small businesses of the Elmwood Village thrive.

The boutique crawl has “helped promote the Elmwood Village as a premier stop for holiday shopping,” said Carly Battin, executive organizer for the event.  “The crawl gives customers a better shopping experience and helps them get away from the big name stores. Through the event, each and every participant is helping small business success in Buffalo.”

            The third annual Elmwood Boutique Crawl is set to take place on Nov. 29 and stretches across the entire Elmwood Village. Four stores in particular appreciate all of the support they receive from Elmwood Village consumers as the holidays create a nice little buzz in the area.

Joe Maniaci, owner of Allentown Music, on shopping locally:

            “People are finally getting a hang of shopping locally,” said Stephanie Robb, owner of Turnstyle Designs located on Ashland Avenue in Buffalo.   “Customers that shop locally are keeping their dollar within the vicinities.”

            Robb also owns Wild Things Boutique, which is located on Lexington Avenue,  not far from Turnstyle. In Wild Things, Robb houses numerous amounts of jewelry designed by local artists.

            Robb’s philosophy of small business is pretty much every owner’s opinion throughout the village. These boutiques may only see 20 customers a week, but there is a reason why these customers choose these small boutiques instead of Macy’s or other big box stores; they are guaranteed to have something that you’ll fall in love with. 

            “Turnstyles has things that others don’t have,” said customer Jackie Blanco. “I know no one else will have it.”

            That is the exact point that Elmwood Village vendors are trying to draw. The service and products in these small stores and boutiques are nearly impossible to come by at a mall or a big name brand store.

            Siobhan Taylor, owner of Ms. Eye Candy Boutique, located on West Utica Street, carries designs from artists from the West Coast. She caters to customers between 20 and 50 years old and believes that small businesses are a great place to shop.

Siobhan Taylor, owner of Ms. Eye Candy Boutique

            “Being a resident of Allentown I have always committed to shopping in the Elmwood Village,” said Taylor. “It is nice to get different things as well as help other peoples businesses. We have a cool little area.”

            Taylor puts the nail in the coffin when defining small business.  
            “Yes, you don’t hear the name first like most do when it comes to a store in the mall, but once you visit and shop in boutiques, you get a different feel. You get to help a community and you get to own something unique in style,” said Taylor.

            Many stores in the village  highlight the Queen City in posters, postcards, clothing of all different kinds, and replicas.

            Joe Cascio,  owner of PosterArt USA located on the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Bird Avenue, believes that small business is great and defines the Elmwood Village.

            “Small business means a lot to this city,” said Cascio. “These businesses are very important to this city’s growth.”

            PosterArt carries the famous Buffalo sports teams t-shirt designs, the “Fred-Ex” shirt, for example, which is designed after Buffalo Bills running back Fred Jackson and can only be found online. Cascio compiles all of what Buffalo has to offer into one store.

            Making your way through the Elmwood Village, the storefronts are mostly clean with a classic design. Not at Allentown Music. In this storefront, located on Elmwood Avenue near Forest Avenue, old guitars screwed onto the facade are one of the many things that catch the average passerby’s eye.

           

Joe Maniaci, owner of Allentown Music

Joe Maniaci, owner of Allentown Music believes in small business and the Elmwood Village in a whole.

            “Elmwood’s small business owners are all people just like myself. People are just trying to make a living,” said Maniaci. “It is just that personal touch within the village that you wont get anywhere else. Small businesses help give a unique experience that you will never forget.

            With small business Saturday coming up following Thanksgiving, all of these featured shops and boutiques, as well as many other shops in the Elmwood village, are expecting higher numbers, more foot traffic, and a lot of sales.

            “About 40 percent of our year is done during the holiday shopping season,” said Robb.

Evolation Yoga aims to relax the West Side

By Sade Mckenzie and Shytisha Taylor
Bengal News West Reporters

As the vibration of mellow tunes flow throughout the body and citrus-flavored incense  fills the hot, humidified room, one can’t help but to feel relaxed by the calmness of one’s mind. 

Evolation Yoga made its first appearance on the Elmwood strip in 2009 as a Bikram Yoga, also known as hot yoga studio. Since then it has become a transnational meeting ground for diverse individuals sharing a common passion for yoga.

  Alicia Kirkendall

 Bikram Yogawas created by Bikram Choudhury. It is a 26-posture exercise conducted in a 105 degree room. Each individual posture works collectively to create muscle flexibility, constant blood flow and a clearer mind.

The studio has  expanded, offering a variety of classes for students including a beginners  yoga class conducted in a less heated room, a faster-paced yoga class also known as “flow” and Bikram Yoga for advanced students. These classes focus on controlling the outer body through inner stillness.

Alicia Kirkendall has been a yoga instructor at Evolation for two years and says that yoga has helped her to exude positivity and embrace self-reflection and meditation.

            “What are you doing for everybody? You’re just sitting there meditating but without that inner stillness what would you be projecting otherwise? Chaos or anger? There are so many feelings that people feel, that they don’t realize they can put off to others,” Kirkendall said. 

 In addition to the advantages that yoga has for the mind, practicing yoga in a heated room helps to sweat out toxins held within the glands and organs of the body. The heat also helps to soften the muscles, allowing students to easily adjust to the various postures without messing up their body alignment.

“With the heat, it increases the circulation of your blood so it gets everything moving around faster,” Kirkendall said.

Kelly Trip, a Yoga Flow instructor at Evolation calls it fun. She teaches yoga to her employees at her corporate job for 50 minutes during her lunch break and calls it “corporate yoga.”

“It’s really about connecting the postures in a fluid way,” Trip said.

Yoga also allows students to connect with each other. Students contribute to the self-healing process of people around them. They work together by feeding off of each other’s energy and motivating one another. 

“It’s amazing having everyone come together into one room and work hard to better themselves,” Kirkendall said.

Instructors at Evolation Yoga continue to build a larger yoga community by teaching their techniques to students and teachers nationally and internationally. They conduct a series of training workshops in California, Florida, Costa Rica and Spain, and have helped open Evolation Yoga studios in Florida, Atlanta, Costa Rica and Columbia.

“We all help each other,” Kirkendall said. “It’s a good network of teachers and guidance. It’s a well-rounded training.”

They have  training workshops in California and Hawaii in March 2014, and later in London, Paris and Amsterdam.

 “Yoga is a great getaway from a hectic life,” said Lasasha Oyo, student at SUNY Buffalo State.

Oyo has participated in yoga classes at Evolation for the past year and calls it a spiritual journey.

The West Side offers many other yoga studios that contribute to the community and present a different focus other than hot yoga. With all of the different types of classes available, an individual can find a style specific to what he or she  wishes to accomplish.

Erin Cook, owner of Head to Heart Yoga,  says that it is never too late to begin yoga. She believes that there are various styles and levels to suit anyone’s liking.

“There are many kids yoga classes offered around the world and people practice yoga well into their 80s and even 90s,” Cook said.  

Two West Side shops sell throwback theme

By Caitlin Kupiec and James McDonald
Bengal News West Reporters

Kindles, iPods, eBooks, and iPads are all things that don’t scare the owners of Black Dots and West Side Stories.

Black Dots, at 223 Lafayette Ave., is an independently run record store that opened last June on the West Side and a few doors down  is the used book store, Westside Stories at 205 Grant St.

Black Dots specializes in selling vinyl records and carries various genres including rock, metal, punk, hardcore, hip hop, and pop albums.

Owner Joshua Smith said business was slow at first, but it has been picking up lately. His friend owned the building that Black Dots is located in, which is initially why he chose the storefront.  But said he likes what is happening on Grant Street and all of the resurgence businesses and shops on the West Side.

Joshua Smith, on vinyl:

Smith admits that he thinks downloading is very convenient. According to him, it’s nice to have all of your music in your pocket and being able to download instantly, but there is an experience that music listeners miss when they just download. 

“It’s just a different experience I guess,” Smith said. “It’s the difference between watching a movie on your phone and actually going out and going to see a movie, or play. It’s a different form of entertainment. It’s a different experience, a more tangible thing.”

Eric Bifaro, who owns a print shop in the same building as Black Dots, thinks that downloading is always going to be popular, but he believes people are starting to realize that they are missing out on the experience of downloading that Smith pointed out as well.

“I think for a number of years, people got away from (buying records) because of the ease of downloading,” Bifaro said. “But people are now seeing that they are losing something in not having the tangible album."

According to Smith, a lot of people still collect records. It’s a hobby and a part of music culture for some people. He said customers will come over from Canada or the Rochester area just to check out the store and see what he has in stock.

 “That’s the thing about record collectors,” Smith said. “Wherever you go, if you are traveling around, you are going to want to search out the best place to find records.”

Westside  Stories has been open for a little over two years, and like Smith, owner Jeanenne Petri has noticed the more time that passes, the more customers find their way into her small but quaint store, filled with stacks of used books from floor to ceiling. 

Jeanenne Petri, on traditional books:

Petri said she loves being located on the West Side, and that she thinks it’s a special place with lots of diversity. According to Petri, a used bookstore is beneficial to the neighborhood’s reputation.

 “I think having a bookstore is something that adds a lot of value to the neighborhood,” Petri said.

With the new innovations of Kindles and eBooks popping up, Petri feels that there is still room for both in the media world. She likes to download books on her iPad and said she thinks downloading is convenient and easier for travelling. But she still thinks that owning a physical book is something that holds a greater meaning.

“A book is something that you can pass on physically to someone else,” Petri said. “And that’s something I think has a lot of value still.”

Petri owns a record player and has wandered down to check out Smith’s inventory.

“I love the fact that there is a record store opening in this day and age,” Petri said. “That makes me feel better about owning a book store.”