Local businesses find mashup mutually beneficial

It’s about mutual benefit.

There once was a drugstore that opened a soda fountain.

A bowling alley somewhere added miniature golf.

A Halloween pumpkin farmer once had the idea to grow a crop of corn into the shape of a maze.

It’s the entrepreneurial twofer, the small business symbiosis, the mashup of one business with another designed to attract customers and bolster the bottom line.

So it is in the South Sound with the economy the way it is, as necessity breeds innovation.

KARAOKE CAB COMPANY

A coffee shop offers a taste of the tarot, a taxi company with a Hawaiian hook adds in-cab karaoke, and an aesthetician offers facials alongside an upscale consignment shop for children’s clothes.

For the past six months, Sibbett has owned his own cab company, Aloha.

He’s Hawaiian. He owns two cabs, there’s another being prepared and he’s looking at a fourth.

And here’s what’s different about Aloha:

• The five current drivers all vote on any new driver who applies for a job.

• All drivers wear a uniform: a colorful Hawaiian shirt.

• There’s a bobble-body hula dancer swaying atop the taxi meter.

• As you drive along, people turn and look.

• The cabs smell of coconut.

• There’s karaoke.

Sibbett, 35, moved to Tacoma by way of Idaho, Utah and Lacey. Before becoming a driver some four years ago, he worked in a warehouse.

His current fleet is American-made – a Chevy, a Ford and a Buick – and the drivers operate, Sibbett said, under the Hawaiian spirits of aloha and “kokua,” to cooperate, to help.

“We live here, we work here, we are going to take care of our community. It’s open. It’s heart.”

By taking care he means offering extra service to elderly clients, and giving special attention “to people affected by Pierce Transit cutbacks.”

His goal is clear and quickly stated.

“If it moves in the 253, we’ll own it. Cabs, courier service. We’re trying to raise the bar. We’re the varsity.”

“We compete,” he said, “by being who we are.”

And being smart.

Most of the cab business in the city, he said, comes after dark between Thursday and Sunday. Aloha drivers are on the road every day and night, but the aim stays on the busiest hours.

“We are going to focus on Tacoma,” Sibbett said. “We are going to take the night traffic.”

And other than having bright red, strongly branded cabs, Aloha has taken care to mine opportunities available electronically.

“We have been aided by social networking,” said driver and webmaster Harry Galdeira.

“We have fans,” said Sibbett.

Before opening, he held a meeting with several veteran Tacoma cab drivers.

“I always err on the side of experience,” he said. Through their frustration, “they taught me what direction I didn’t want to go.”

The idea, he said, is to be open, bright, fun. “And if it’s going to be Hawaiian, we might as well add a karaoke machine.”

Screens grace each vehicle. Passengers are offered microphones.

“We get people with karaoke anxiety,” Galdeira said. “I try to make them as comfortable as I can.”

The most-requested tune is “Bohemian Rhapsody,” for men, and “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” for women.

“Tiny Bubbles,” sadly, is not on the playlist.

There’s no extra charge for the music.

“I’m not competing, I’m creating,” Sibbett said.

And how many cabs would he one day like to own?

“All of them,” he said.

PSYCHIC COFFEEHOUSE

After 20 years spent repairing vending machines for Coca-Cola, Mark Smith, 50, decided to answer his muse.

“For years, off and on, I’d thought about a coffee shop,” he said recently.

Several weeks ago he opened Mystic Mocha at the Evergreen Ridge shopping center at 196th and Meridian Avenue East in Graham.

It’s a place to have a cappuccino and get your cards read, your dreams interpreted, or your energy field realigned.

Smith left vending machines and, a father of two sons, supported his family and his ambition with a home-equity loan. An early plan for a coffee shop in Yelm fizzled, and Smith saw that an Austin Chase outlet in Graham had closed.

“I drive past this place all the time,” he said. “Before, the lease was too much. After five or six months, they were willing to work with me.”

Smith made the deal and reached out to his network of alternative metaphysicians.

Smith himself is trained to work with energy fields.

“I let myself be a channel,” he said. “My dream is a place for like-minded people to hang out and have a good cup of coffee, where everybody accepts everybody.”

It’s his philosophy of business, and life. “We all have our paths to God,” he said.

“All paths lead to God. We all have our way to get there.”

It’s a journey, he said, not a destination.

“I’m letting it take on a life of its own and see where it takes me,” he said.

People trained in various mystical disciplines are available by appointment.

“It’s best to contact us, and then we can schedule an appointment with a reader,” he said.

Information concerning the expertise of available readers and psychics is posted at the shop.

The coffee costs what coffee costs, and the readers charge a fee – perhaps $20 or $25 – for an in-person consultation.

Conversation is free with like-minded customers at Mystic Mocha, and there are books and board games to help pass the time.

Bill Champlin of Tacoma reads tarot cards at Mystic Mocha, as well as privately at parties or psychic fairs.

“I’ve been studying metaphysics for 25 years,” he said. “You can get a lot of information from getting a tarot reading. People ask about jobs, relationships, finances. I don’t tell them what to do – I give them options.”

Mystic Mocha, he said, offers “another avenue to reach out to people.”

Linda Belles of Spanaway reads playing cards and channels messages from spirits – including a “little Irish woman” who lived in the 12th century.

She also does “psychometry,” reading people through objects they provide.

“I just give people what the spirit is telling me,” she said.

She plans to spend December Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. at Mystic Mocha.

“It’s not a hobby, it’s not a job, it’s a calling,” she said.

“More people now want to talk to those who have passed,” she said.

She said Smith, “is creating a nonthreatening, safe place to explore a nonphysical side of their life. People have questions and they’re not getting the answers. This place – I think it’s a real blessing that he’s so open to searching minds and searching hearts.”

SPA & KIDS CONSIGNMENT

The two-page menu of services at Total Woman Spa & Salon, 2310 Mildred St. W. in University Place, lists facials, electrolysis, the application of permanent makeup, waxings, eyelash extensions and a selection of spa packages.

And down the hall, there’s children’s clothes and a trunki or two.

For those of you not keeping track of fashionable trends, a trunki is an upscale suitcase designed for a child.

And the shop called Sugar & Spice and All Things Twice is the brainbaby of Su Leeming, mother of two and the owner of the spa.

She opened the children’s consignment shop about a month ago.

Both the spa and shop are contained within the same storefront as Total Woman Health Studio, a gym and personal training center owned by Hollis Ledbetter.

Leeming, 34, opened the spa component five years ago.

“I always wanted to own my own business,” she said recently.

In her native England, she was a member of Young Enterprise, a business organization similar to Junior Achievement aimed at counseling young people with ambitions toward business.

“I think maybe that’s what inspired me,” Leeming said.

She opened the spa with three treatment rooms, a hair salon and tanning parlor.

Then, she said, the economic downturn turned up. She downsized her staff and space, but she kept the business open.

“I’m a stubborn redhead,” she said.

“I like to be busy. I thrive on being busy. My mind is always thinking.”

The mother of two, ages 2 and 3, she thought about fashion.

“I had my children. I love to dress my children in designer clothes. I love clothes. I was going to consignment shops, and I got tired of looking at things that should have been thrown in the garbage. Since I had my kids, I’ve wanted to open a consignment shop. I wanted to find a way to make money.”

There was an unoccupied space nearby, 1,000 square feet, in the shopping center. She negotiated a lease with the landlord, but then discovered, after calling the City of University Place, that she would be required to pay a large traffic impact fee if she wanted to open in the vacant space.

So she and Ledbetter did some rearranging in the spa and gym, and Sugar & Spice opened its doors.

“In this economy, moms still want to dress their kids cute,” Leeming said. “Moms will sacrifice themselves. I thought I could offer quality clothing at a good price. We don’t take everything.”

Labels include Ralph Lauren, Guess, DKNY and several European labels, among others. Items include tops, jeans, shoes, sweaters, coats, those Melissa and Doug trunkis and other items that fit into an age-range from newborn to 10 years.

Leeming offers a 40 percent split with consignors, and if an item is on the shelf more than 90 days, it can be donated to charity.

“People think it’s cute,” Leeming said. “They like how it looks.”

She expects one day, with success, to hire someone to tend the shop while she’s working in the spa. She’s thinking of adding children’s aerobics, spa parties and birthday parties, and she’s considering using her art background to do belly casting.

For the trend-bereft, belly casting comprises casting a pregnant silhouette using plaster or other material.

“Do I make a lot of money? No,” Leeming said. “Am I still open? Yes.”

“I don’t ever want to give up. Despite the odds, you want to succeed. You keep trying.”

C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535
c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com