Studio changes name, drops its coffee shop

Beautiful Grounds, a former coffee shop and skin care studio located on the mezzanine level of Auntie’s Bookstore, at 203 N. Washington, has changed its name to The Fix Brow Bar & Skin Care Studio, says Elly Allen, owner and licensed master esthetician. 

Allen says she changed the business name to better reflect the studio’s services, since it no longer operates as a coffee shop. Instead, The Fix Brow Bar & Skin Care Studio now focuses solely on skin care, she says. However, complimentary drip coffee still will be provided, she says.

The studio offers eyebrow waxing, shape rebuilding, and related services, she says. Facial services, including targeted treatments, also are offered. Allen says lash lifting services also have been popular recently. 

She says the studio has been working out of one barber chair and just added a second. This spring, it also will be adding a line of men’s skin care products for their skin and beards, she says. The studio also has expanded into bridal makeup, both traditional and airbrush, and is booking for the 2017 wedding season.  

The business has two other full-time employees, both estheticians, she says.

The Fix Brow Bar & Skin Care Studio occupies 300 square feet of leased space in the Auntie’s Bookstore building, where it has been since it opened in September 2014. It’s open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The studio is open until 8 p.m. on Fridays.

—Samantha Howard

Verge Coffee opens in Service Station

The Verge Coffee Co. has opened inside The Service Station Event Center, at 9315 N. Nevada, on Spokane’s North Side. 

The coffee company is owned by Michael and Krysta Hulse, who lease from The Service Station the 4,700-square-foot space that formerly served as the event center’s café. 

Krysta Hulse says this is the company’s first location, having just opened for business in the space at the start of February. 

“I guess you could say we got into this because we have a passion for coffee,” she says. “We’d like this to be a starting point, and eventually, we hope to have multiple locations and roast our own blends of coffee.” 

Hulse says the couple also likes to support other local businesses by serving coffee created by local roaster Indaba Coffee, and pastries from downtown bakeries the Common Crumb and Sweet Box. The shop also serves sandwiches created in its kitchen. 

Hulse says the company currently employs three people in addition to her and her husband. 

The Service Station Event Center is a two-story, 18,000-square-foot building owned by Genesis Church, which purchased it in August of 2015. In addition to The Verge, the building’s other tenants include Bent Events, an event planning and hosting company, and Monte’s Food Drive.  

—LeAnn Bjerken

Outdoor-gear store to open next month

Mark Schneider, a former industrial engineer from Boise, has moved to Spokane to open a business named NW Outdoors Gear & Apparel Consignment, which will be located in the former home of longtime ski shop Wintersport.

Scheduled to open April 1, NW Outdoors will be located at 3220 N. Division, on the southeast corner of Division Street and Bridgeport Avenue, on Spokane’s North Side. Former Wintersport owner Darrell Perdue sold the property last October and retired. Wintersport had been operating since 1974.

Schneider has hired two other employees to help operate the business. He plans to use the 3,300-square-foot building as a consignment shop and already has started accepting recreation equipment that is high quality, he says. 

“The location is perfect, and it’s a bonus that it was previously a reputable ski and sport store. Our business model is based on what an associate of mine in Boise established four years ago,” says Schneider, 38, who spent the last 15 years working as an industrial engineer.

Schneider says he’s operating NW Outdoors independent of his associate’s Boise-based business. “He’s seen year-over-year growth double percentagewise since opening.”

Schneider says he selected Spokane because it has an active outdoor community and is still one of the few bigger markets left in the western U.S. that lacks an outdoor consignment shop. 

“We’ll take all types of recreational equipment, and if it sells, you can either collect payment for it or accept in-store credit.”

—Kevin Blocker

Truck driver school moves to new space

Drive509, a newly opened truck driving school here, has moved to a new location to accommodate demand for its classes.  

Owner and operator Jason Boudreau says that following increased interest in courses, the business moved from its former space at 3203 E. Main to a new location at 606 N. Fiske. 

Drive509 currently rents a 300-square-foot classroom space at the new location and also shares the site’s 60,000 square feet of yard space with a United Parcel Service facility.

Boudreau says he launched the business in October to help prospective truck drivers acquire a commercial driver’s license (CDL). 

“I’ve been driving trucks for the past 12 years, and I just really enjoy teaching people,” he says.

Drive509 offers students two courses, a $3,000 Class A License course and a $1,800 Class B License course. Boudreau says each course is about four weeks long, includes written and hands-on training, and usually hosts three to six students. 

In addition to being the business’s owner, Boudreau serves as its main instructor, having been a CDL tester for the Washington state Department of Licensing for two years. 

Currently, individuals seeking a CDL must complete a state-approved testing program. Boudreau says. Drive509’s curriculum has been approved by the Washington state CDL compliance department. 

“Students can train here, but they still need to complete the state test at the end of the course in order to obtain their license,” he says. 

—LeAnn Bjerken

Dry Fly expands with tasting room

Dry Fly Distillery, located at 1003 E. Trent, has opened a new tasting room in a neighboring 1,200-square-foot area that a coffee shop formerly occupied, says co-owner Kent Fleischman.

“Tasting has always been in the production area,” says Fleischman, who co-founded Dry Fly with Don Poffenroth a decade ago.

“We were really thinking about moving downtown and moving to serve food, building a bar, and get licenses, and then saw the cost and thought otherwise,” Fleischman says. “But the coffee shop moved out in November, and we started work on the tasting room in December.”

“We gutted it completely, and it blends real well with 6,000 square feet we have for distilling,” adds Fleischman, who says the tasting room has enough space to hold 50 people.

He says Dry Fly, a distiller of acclaimed gin, vodka, and whiskey, now is looking to enhance the palates of its customers as it serves a wider range of cocktail samplers, tonics, and craft bitters that are from outside the Spokane market.

“Our focus is still local, but these are some things from outside the area that we’re really excited to introduce to the Spokane market,” he says.

Dry Fly also will start offering pairing plates, which are 10-inch by 3-inch platters of small gourmet fare ranging from exotic chocolates to pickled eggs, Fleischman says.

“We want to be a better distillery and offer a better experience where you can sit, mingle, and chat,” he says.

—Kevin Blocker