CHARLES TOWN — Businesses in downtown Charles Town are really feeling the month of love as they’ve paired up for Charles Town Now’s Power Couples event, a cross-business promotion throughout February that provides the perfect way for patrons to experience all the area has to offer.
Businesses paired off with one another, each providing a special related to another business, a way to truly showcase their loves.
At Yarnability, customers receive 10% off with a Sokel Make-Up receipt, while Sokel customers receive $5 off their first facial with a Yarnability receipt. With receipts from the other, customers can either take advantage of 15% off at Feagans Jewlers or Tee Dawgs BBQ.
Sibling Coffee and Fuzzy Dog Books & Music are offering 10% off with a receipt from the other, while a B. Vintage receipt at Ortega’s earns a free gelatina de mosaico, B. Vintage providing 10% off with an Ortega’s receipt. The Hobbies Shop and Paddy’s Pub are giving 15% and 10% discounts, respectively, with the other’s receipt. Bushel & Peck and Studio M are offering 10% off with a receipt from the other location, and Abolistionist Ale Works and Weant to Play are offering 15% with the other’s receipt.
“It was a brainchild of a merchant meeting. We have business-owner meetings once a month, and we were talking,” said Liz Cook, downtown coordinator. “I push the business owners to try to work together a lot. We were a little disconnected because of the pandemic, so I thought, ‘Why don’t we try to do some cross-promotion?’ Receipt-sharing was how it started. I used the example of Fuzzy Dog and Sibling, because you can’t go wrong with coffee and books. It kind of goes together. It just came from there. During the meeting, Michelle from B. Vintage says, ‘I want Ortega’s. I want them to be my pair.’ I was like, ‘We can do it like we have a crush on each other.’ We just rolled with it, and it got bigger and bigger. Now, they’re engaged and in love and making videos together.”
The businesses took off with the idea, giving each other Valentine’s gifts on Facebook or sharing a flirty emoji or message on social media with their crush. The businesses are truly finding the fun it in, Feagans Jewelers commenting on Studio M and Bushel & Peck’s crush tribute with “Umm okay. Tee Dawgs BBQ, are you going to come serenade us???!! We might be a little jealous.”
“The business owners were really excited about it,” Cook said with a smile, thinking of the fun personalities being showcased. “Shane (Stoneberger), of course, has been the jeweler here for a long time, so he’s been in this community for years and years and years. Him and Trevor (Littleton) have known each other a long time. They went to school around the same time, and they’ve both been in Jefferson County forever. When we paired them up, I was like, ‘This is going to be the best pair.’ You’ve got rough-and-tumble barbecue and beautiful diamonds.
“Their buy-in means a lot to me. On their social medias, they’re talking back and forth to each other and sending each other emojis.”
Tee Dawgs and Feagans might be the most committed couple of the bunch, Stoneberger proposing to Littleton on behalf of their business and Littleton going to social media to steal Ortega’s and B. Vintage’s thunder, commenting “This is the real power couple, gold and BBQ!”
Loving the commitment to the promotion and enjoying the fun between crushes, Cook said the event is a great way to introduce new customers to businesses they’d never been to before or ones they didn’t realized call downtown Charles Town home.
“One of my pushes for this was that we’re sharing our customers with each other,” Cook said. “People that normally go to Sokel, maybe they want to learn to knit or get into that kind of other hobby. Anna (Sokel) is introducing all her customers to Yarnability that maybe they didn’t know was there, and the same goes for Yarnability customers. Maybe they want to get a facial and didn’t know she was there.”
And in the end, all the love finds its roots in a caring for the downtown area, the businesses wanting to all see each other succeed and thrive, especially amid the pandemic.
“Anna Sokel, she surprised Karen at Yarnability with a chocolate-covered strawberry from Sibling,” Cook said with smile. “To see them interacting on a level that we did not facilitate, they’re doing this on them their own, (it’s great). Ortega’s got a painted sign from B.Vintage, and then Natalie (Greene), who owns Ortega’s, she took flowers to Michelle (Harlow Zimmerle’s) mom. Just seeing them do these things together is heartwarming. They’re working together, and they know what the goal is. The goal is to make Charles Town look inviting and like we’re in love, a place where you want to hang out and everybody’s friends.”
For more information on the event or to see the businesses promoting their crushes and sharing their love, visit the Charles Town Now Facebook page.
