Tonya Mae Pacey sat down and talked about what it was like to run a small business in her first ever store that she had opened in 2022 The Pacey Apothecary.
When asked about her story and what started her and her husbands journey, Tonya said, “I’m Tonya Pacey, I was born and raised here and I left from 2008-2016 to travel. Me and my husband lived in our car, we stayed at a bunch of different national parks, different farms, and places to learn about natural healing and learn about healthy foods and alternative medicine. When we got pregnant with our daughter we came back to Indiana and I wanted to open an apothecary and bring the healing stuff that I learned to Seymour our home town.”
Going off the previous question I then asked what started their journey into the restaurant and food industry, “We wanted more cleaner options, you know, things from scratch. I feel Seymour and this area don’t like to venture out in flavor, you know like stick to 2 things and I’m like, ‘What if you tried this?’ So that was another thing about having different food and bringing something subtle to our hometown people.”
When asked what it was like when she first opened The Pacey Apothecary,“It was crazy. I started out selling stuff from my house whenever I got pregnant. I had learned a lot about the bad things that were in things we put on our babies and then that they could cause cancer, so I started by making deodorant and other items and selling them from my house to start off, that was back in 2017. So I had been selling online and slowly growing till 2022. Its opening was literally my dream come true and it is what I had envisioned for it having a meeting space, a kid’s room, and having a reiki room as well, like this was a no-brainier and it all kind of fell into place the way that it should have.”
I then asked for the reason for opening a restaurant going off of her answer to bring more flavor to Seymour,”This (referring to the apothecary) has always been my dream and my husband had managed multiple restaurants. As soon as we found out we were pregnant and we stopped living on the road he took the big boy job as a manager over a salsarita and then he became district manager and so he worked really hard for other people to get us where we are and then after I got my business up and running I was like, ‘You need to follow your dream, what do you want to do?’ He wanted to open his own restaurant and it started with him opening up a tent outside of here(The apothecary) like the Oktoberfest with some flat tops from Walmart for like 200 bucks and that’s what started Lola’s Kitchen.
Tonya then talked about how her and her husband had both worked as servers and that they had made many friends but they had always worked for others, so it was a refresher to work for themselves for their own business.
When asked about the pros and cons of being a small town business she had this to answer, “One pro is who we get to work for [themselves], and we get to be involved with the community. The cons is this is a small town and so it’s hard to strive as a small business like just as a gift shop, I can’t be just a gift shop so that’s why I have to add in comedy nights and other events, so it’s you have to push so much harder than just being like, ‘Oh, I open my doors and make pretty things!’ I gotta make a TikTok every day, I’ve got to make, you know, content whereas like very important corporations or franchises like everyone knows.”
She then talks about having to be their everything, “We have to be our everything, so I’m an accountant, I’m a plumber, and electrician.” She then talks about some of the struggles for her business because of what it stands and supports for, “Then of course being different in this community there’s a little bit of a push back due to my progressiveness, it’s very hard in this community.
“Mae’s [Mae’s Townhouse Diner] is our community project, so like this is my dream but it’s not for everyone [The Pacey Apothecary] and it doesn’t have to be and Seth’s [her husband] is Lola’s, that’s his dream, but it’s not for everyone you know, some people don’t feel comfortable coming in and seeing skateboards on the wall. Mae’s is something that we want everybody to like and enjoy. Everybody loves breakfast and that can bring everybody together and it’s our passion for the community.”
When asked how she deals with stress, criticisms, or just negative comments, “We try not to argue with people and see everybody’s perspectives and their views to honor them and I do feel everybody has a right to an opinion about what we’re doing and to speak their voice and it gives us an opportunity to correct it and to help educate them on exactly what we’re doing because I feel like a lot of people have their own version of us in their heads. We keep trying to push out love and positiveness and just know that it’s gonna come back to us and we’ll conversate that way and let it go.
When asked if anything new is coming she said, “Lola’s will have a barbecue menu, like we’ll have a smoker in house, Lola’s is going to have more full service and they just got their beer and wine license, we’ll be opening more for events and parties and adding more rooms for private events, and more arcade games. Here at the apothecary, I will be focusing more on community events, so I will be pushing more on the little markets we do out here to bring light to the local vendors and we will be doing work on doing fund raising events for the humane society, victims of domestic violence which is like my biggest thing here.”
Then while talking on the subject of fund raisers she goes into that each business helps, “Everyone of our places have a passion and that is mine, helping the homeless community or people in need of extra clothes or bodies are changing so that is the reason why we a have the free rack outside [The Pacey Apothecary] and Lola’s is about fighting childhood hunger so they do a food pantry and they like to do food drives and for Mae’s Townhouse Cafe is going to help the humane society.”
With questions being answered hopefully we all can see what small town business owners have to do and deal with and go through, but also why they do it and what they want to do to help our town. I would also like to show thanks to Tonya Pacey and her husband for sharing their experiences and want to thank all small business owners for what they do for our town and community.
