Sunday, October 7, 2012
Al Barrett, owner of Dunedin Canvas Works off Bayshore Boulevard, uses earnings from his business to bring sewing machines and education to impoverished areas around the world.
Al Barrett has been sewing boating accessories for 30 years, but only in the last 16 has he found his true calling. The salty sailor still creates the cushions, covers, and other marine canvas products as he always has, but now he takes his profits from his nautical upholstery business, Dunedin Canvas Works near Eddie's Bar & Grill, to fund his charity Threads of Hope. Threads of Hope donates foot-powered sewing machines and provides education in making patterns, alterations and garment construction to widows and orphans. The foundation has sent sewing machines to 14 countries across the world, with a focus in Africa. It was the voice of God that changed Al Barrett’s life. Standing in his kitchen almost 20 years ago, he felt God speak to …
28.022136
-82.789572
Dunedin Canvas Works
1297 Bayshore Blvd, Dunedin, FL
/articles/dunedin-canvas-works-dunedin-boat-business-sews-hope-in-africa
943426
/locations/7948276
Sunday, September 23, 2012
The owners of Two Lions Winery, a microwinery on Main Street near Belcher, are determined to win a gold medal for wine and a battle against colon cancer.
Neither colon cancer nor financial strain is keeping the owners of Two Lions Winery from their vision of a bright future in Dunedin. Rose Post and Kevin Zylstra are building a name for themselves as expert wine makers at Two Lions Winery, tucked cozily in a shopping center on Main Street near Belcher Road. Six of their wines have received silver and bronze medals over the last two years. But the couple is keeping its eye on winning gold, despite Zylstra’s diagnosis with stage IV colon cancer last September, discovered during a routine colonoscopy. When Post and Zylstra opened a few years ago, the longtime couple felt they had finally found a business they could do together. Post had run a Chinese restaurant for many years, but she wouldn…
Sunday, September 9, 2012
A wave of specialty olive oil stores, popular in Europe and in California, open across the East Coast. Vanessa Wilks and Nancy Zareczny own one of two in Dunedin that opened in the last six weeks.
The hottest trend in healthy food is olive oil tasting shops and two have opened in Dunedin in the last two months: Middle Earth Olive Oil Company and Kalamazoo Oil Company. Vanessa Wilks and Nancy Zareczny, owners of Middle Earth Olive Oil Company, were retired, ladies who lunch before they opened their specialty food shop in Westfield Countryside Mall in 2011. This past July, after a year in the mall, they moved to the Broadway Shops in downtown Dunedin. Wilks and Zareczny felt that the Broadway Shops offered a more casual atmosphere where they could host tasting parties with live DJs, and have more flexible hours. Their customers followed them from Countryside, and Wilks says the people of Dunedin have been super supportive. “Olive oil…
28.011114
-82.789759
737 Broadway, Dunedin, FL
/articles/second-olive-oil-shop-opens-in-dunedin
/locations/7713752
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Nancy Carney's fashion accessories popped up on the Main Street scene after she was fired from her corporate job. She's been singing, dancing and fashion coordinating ever since.
Nancy Carney wasn't always the Motown-singing and dancing proprietor of Main Street fashion accessory store Nancy's Fancy. A quick peak inside her downtown shop shows tables of jewelry and purses organized meticulously by color. Motown hits feed her daily store soundtrack. Sometimes you may even catch her spontaneously dancing. But a year and half ago, Carney was far from feeling that fancy. One spring morning in 2011, Carney drove to her sales manager job at a large anti-virus software company. She arrived at work that day and noticed her boss and good friend was not in the office, which was unusual. Carney had a feeling that she knew what was coming next. Soon she was called into a meeting. Carney was getting fired, along with the rest …
28.011916
-82.789018
Nancy's Fancy
342 Main St, Dunedin, FL
/articles/from-fired-to-fancy
2065901
/locations/7645065
Sunday, August 12, 2012
The St. Pete-based Kalamazoo Olive Company recently opened its newest location in the Independence Square Plaza.
Kalamazoo Olive Company, a gourmet grocery store that specializes in premium olive oils and vinegars, recently opened a shop on County Road 1 in Dunedin. “Olive oil is a $700 billion a year business,” owner James Ryan said. “But this is the only place around where people can get fresh, pressed oils.” Ryan's store is the second location for the St. Petersburg-based company, which originally opened in 2010 on Central Avenue. He imports olive oils from all over the world, including Italy, Chile, Argentina and Venezuela. Ryan claims his oils and vinegars are better for you because they are “unadultered," or free from additives, flavorings and secondary oils found in most store bought brands, which can sit on shelves for up to two years before…
28.021371
-82.763529
1232 County Road 1, Dunedin, FL
/articles/specialty-olive-oil-shop-comes-to-dunedin
/locations/7728106
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Larry Lipke and George Talmadge joined forces to launch Pet Safari, a longtime Main Street pet shop, into the national spotlight and featured on the Anderson Cooper Show and Animal Planet.
For Larry Lipke, educating children was not enough. The longtime owner of Pet Safari left his job as a Christian school teacher to follow his childhood dream of owning a pet store. He wanted to teach people to love and respect animals. And after nearly 30 years into it, he has carefully and steadily created a Main Street pet shop that is nationally-known, especially for its care for exotic sloths and other animals. Lipke met longtime store manager George Talmadge about 15 years into his business. Talmadge was a Dunedin Parks & Recreation employee tasked with coordinating the city's annual Hog Hustle 5K. Pet Safari was one of the sponsors. The two became friends and met for lunch every Friday. One afternoon Talmadge mentioned that he was…
28.019445
-82.757245
Pet Safari
1749 Main St, Dunedin, FL
/articles/owner-manager-team-breeds-nationally-known-business
944201
/locations/7524508
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Owner Lynn Thorn had a good job in England when a proverbial thistle bush on her life's path changed her course toward a new Celtic paradise in Dunedin.
In 1996, Lynn Thorn left her job with Norfolk Southern Railroad and moved across the pond to Borehamwood, England, to marry the man she loved. Just 18 months later she was a widow. Thorn had a good job with T-Mobile at the time, and though she was still reeling with grief, she loved her new country and decided to stay. Eventually, she took a buyout but remained in England as a change management consultant for a myriad large corporations. A nagging thought stayed in the back of her mind: “I kept thinking that I would love to have my own business,” Thorn said. She started looking for a business to buy in 2008. She looked everywhere: from England to Spain and North Carolina. "One day I found a listing for a business for sale in Dunedin," she …
28.011893
-82.788803
The Celtic Shop of Dunedin
354 Main St, Dunedin, FL
/articles/owner-s-thorny-path-led-to-celtic-shop
944163
/locations/7462576
Sunday, May 20, 2012
To some the American dream may be owning a Harley, but for Nas Hadjiat it's the opportunity to own his own computer repair business.
Young Nas Hadjiat got a call from his family while he was studying mathematics and computer programming at a Parisian university. They told him to come home. They were moving to America. Hadjiat packed his belongings and rushed back to his native country of Algeria, located in northern Africa across the Mediterranean Sea from France, to immigrate with his parents and younger brother and sister. The family had been awarded Green Cards through the United States’ Diversity Immigrant Visa Program which gives about 50,000 permanent resident cards a year in countries with low immigration rates. Although Hadjiat lived in a foreign country for school, France had not been a culture shock for him. Since Algeria was ruled by France for a more than a …
28.019418
-82.772705
Florida Computer Solutions
1274 Main St, Dunedin, FL
/articles/computer-repair-florida-computer-solutions
944463
/locations/7052573
Sunday, May 6, 2012
A little matchmaking sparked more than just a new romance between Nick Annenos and Susan Norton. It also sparked the beginning of a Main Street business in downtown Dunedin.
Can a personal chef ever be compatible with a tile installer whose dream is to own a hot dog cart? Apparently, the answer is yes, at least according to eHarmony, where Nick Annenos, the owner of Oceanside Tile Installation, was matched with Susan Norton, a personal chef. Annenos had always wanted to own a hot dog cart for when his tiling business was slow. He thought it would be fun way to meet people and it was easier on his knees. On the other hand, Norton cooked for families and people with special diets. She had moved to Pinellas County from New York after the tragedy of 9/11. When she first moved to the area, she got a part time job in pain management at Morton Plant Mease as a way to meet friends. The window in her office looked …
28.012524
-82.785792
/articles/hot-dogs-on-main
/locations/6939351
Sunday, March 25, 2012
"The birds’ souls seem to tremble just under the surface of the paintings, so much so, that as you walk away from one you might question whether you heard the sound of rustling feathers."
Wildlife artist Ernest C. Simmons' seemingly effortless depictions of birds transport you to the shore, to the Everglades, out into the wild scrublands and finally catapult you into the heavens. Simmons was fascinated by birds as a child and spent his free time sketching them. He is one of those rare people who knew what he wanted to do from a young age, and so he concentrated on advancing his knowledge of art and birds. Growing up in Clearwater, he started volunteering at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, the largest wild bird hospital in the U.S. In his 19 years as a volunteer, and later as an employee, he worked with thousands of birds each year from the smallest dove to the largest eagle. This knowledge of the bone structure, the …
28.00842
-82.7879
602 Douglas Ave, Dunedin, FL
/articles/simmons
/locations/6649178
Mary Malley
5:56 am on Friday, October 12, 2012
God bless you more ›