Introducing Small Business Patch

The newly launched site offers tips, info and digital know-how for small business owners.

Patch has launched a new site to educate and empower small businesses with the digital tools, social media strategies and marketing know-how needed to ensure long-term growth. It's called Small Business Patch. Readers will have access to exclusive interviews with well-known founders and CEOs and small business industry experts who share their experiences, advice and tips for success. One of the latest articles features an exclusive interview with successful real estate entrepreneur, Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group. In this Q&A, Corcoran discusses the how to take advantage of the size of a small businesses, and why making big “mistakes” made all the difference in her success. Click here to read about the tactics Corcoran …

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Local Deals In And Around Mentor This Black Friday

Here's a list of some of the specials that local businesses are offering this Friday

It's not just big box stores offering deals on this most hallowed of commerce-related holidays. A lot of local businesses are offering specials. (And, yes, I realize I'm probably missing some, as well. Feel free to add your businesses' Black Friday deals in the comments section.) Without further ado, here are the local Black Friday specials: Also, remember the Great Lakes Mall is opening at midnight this Friday and they will have giveaways, music and deals, as well. Finally, there will be some opportunities for philanthropy this Friday, as well. Volunteers from A Prom To Remember will be wrapping gifts outside of Harley Davidson Friday. Any tips received will benefit A Prom To Remember, a special dance for children affected by cancer. Also…

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Pet Pause

Plan to Make Pet Shopping Part of Black Friday

Mentor Pet Stores Offering Friday Savings for All Ye Over-stuffed Consumers

There's the overeating, the overeating again, and then there are still the desserts. For anything left over — and there still will be, even after all of that, even after Dad's thirds — here's last year's column on Thanksgiving-style pet food. And for those of us who already know we'll be so stuffed after our smörgåsbord that the thought of stuffing will make us nauseous, well, let's redirect our attention to the day after. The day of doorbuster sales and stretching one's legs to move faster than one's neighbor toward savings. The day we temporarily turn our attention from overeating to overwhelmed. The day we never weigh ourselves. Black Friday. Good news: your Mentor pet stores are touting some pretty appetizing savings on food, treats, …

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New Owners of Fontina's Foods Thrilled to be Back in Business

After more than a decade away from business, the Verdi family took over Fontina's this month

Randy and Gerri Verdi's purchase of Fontina's Imported Foods is just two weeks old, but they already have plenty of familiarity with their new business. Fontina's is located where the couple opened Great Harvest Bread in the '90s. The Verdis sold that business in 2001 to focus on family and Randy's career as a financial analyst. Many of the memories and familiar faces from Great Harvest came back to Randy as he opened Fontina's under new ownership this month. "It's surreal," he said. "We're excited to be back in the business community. We've grown up business-wise in the Mentor community, and it's great to have a business back in here." Randy, a previous chairman of the Mentor Area Chamber of Commerce, says his family's newest venture is …

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SCORE Helps Business Owners

No, there's not a catch. SCORE's experienced mentors will help you take your business to the next level.

When it comes down to it, behind just about every small business is an entrepreneur hoping to turn their passion into a paycheck. However, as many wise business advisers have noted: Hope is not a strategy. Business owners need support to turn dreams into reality. That's why Patch is pleased to announce a new partnership with SCORE, a nonprofit organization with 12,000 business experts nationwide who provide free mentoring to small business owners. The partnership makes sense because we believe that when local commerce grows, the whole community gets stronger. Patch already provides free listings for local businesses and other tools to help build local brands. Whether you're a 10-year-old jewelry designer or a 79-year-old who carves wood …

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Fireside Antiques Buys, Sells in Unsure Economy

Couple admits it's a tough market, but pledges to continue selling collectibles in Mentor to visitors from all over.

Shops like Fireside Antiques gain more benefits than competition from similar businesses. That's a primary reason the business is looking forward to better days. "The funny thing with antiques is that if you have five or six shops (in the same area), it's good," said Bob Weis, who helps his wife, Judy, run Fireside Antiques. "If you have one, people may say, 'oh there's only one shop,' and keep going." Judy has operated shops at various locations in Lake and Geauga counties since 1989. She quickly realized that those who purchase and search for decades-old furniture and products prefer antique malls with several dealers at one stop. Though Mentor has no other antique shops, the Weis family considered the region a high-concentration area …

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Mentor Student at Helm of Soon-to-Open Maracas

Ambika Bridgemohan will forgo a four-year education to help her family operate a Caribbean restaurant to open on Mentor Avenue.

The Bridgemohan family had two choices regarding 18-year-old Ambika's future. "Either she goes to college and she's in $100,000 in debt after four years, or we take that money now and open a business for her and she can learn it from the ground up," her mother Deborah said. The family decided on the latter and, on July 7, they will open Maracas, a Caribbean-flavored restaurant to be located at 7597 Mentor Ave. Instead of enrolling at a four-year university, Ambika, who will soon graduate from Mentor High School, will be the restaurant's vice president. Allowing a daughter to forgo college in favor of a startup would be tough for many families, but Ambika believes her Trinidadian roots played a role in taking the calculated risk. "We're the…

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Yoga Studio and School Aims to Awaken Mentor

Director says yoga can alter your life and save it.

Yoga both changed and saved Lisa Fleming's life. The studio director of Awaken Yoga Studio, School & Healing Arts had a shortsighted view of the practice until 2008 when it opened her eyes to entrepreneurship, helped her get through a divorce and shed her dependence on chemotherapy and a long list of medicines. "I had always fought yoga — my mom tried to get me to take yoga for my whole life," Fleming said. "I liked going to the gym and (thought) yoga was dumb, and it's stretching, and what's the point? "I was depressed and didn't care about anything, but I went to the class and had a very spiritual experience. I never felt closer to God than I did in this yoga class." Lupus developed in Fleming when she was 11, but she hasn't felt sick …

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Doctor Brings Business Vision to Life with ClearSight Eye Care

Dr. Syed Hasan spent 16 years at Pearle Vision and LensCrafters before opening his own store.

Dr. Syed Hasan hopes to breed as much familiarity as possible during the biggest change of his career. With the launch of his first business venture, ClearSight Eye Care, Hasan intends to maintain the level of service he believes made him a customer favorite for more than a decade at Pearle Vision and LensCrafters. From frame selections to a Mentor Road location just west of his old workplace, Hasan doesn't want too much to change from what he deems a successful run with his former employers. "I learned a lot, met a lot of nice patients, but it was time to do my own thing," Hasan said. "It's a big step, but so far it's been alright. They're happy with what we have, our pricing and selection." His plan to "keep it recognizable" made sense, …

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Studio Owner Says You've Gotta Dance

Gotta Dance Ohio owner Pete Santorelli is glad he decided to get in the dance instruction business

Though Pete Santorelli grew up in a family of dancers and rarely missed an episode of "Soul Train," it took about 30 years for him to realize his hobby's business potential. A vicious finger injury ended his days as both a construction worker and pianist in 2000. His father suggested becoming a dance instructor, but Santorelli was unsure about its prospects. He gave it a try, and that decision effectively birthed Gotta Dance Ohio, a ballroom instruction studio that opened in late December on Mentor Avenue. "The very first time I took a student on the floor and started working with them, I realized I should have been doing this all these years," Santorelli, the sole owner, said of his early instruction days at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in …

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