If you were to open a second store, what kind of location would you look for?“

I would look for a mixed-use neighborhood, the kind of place where you live, work, and shop. In the Milwaukee area, we are seeing a barrage of this type of community. It started within our downtown area, the old warehouse district, which for the past ten years has been coming back very strong. Developers have come from around the country to turn them into condominiums and offices. It's almost like New York City: everyone stays within their little block. You've got a concentrated population; they walk to your store, they walk to work. Instead of being a destination retailer, like we are now, I would be a neighborhood store.

We opened a second store two years ago, and we'd do the same thing if we opened a third. We look for locations with similar stores and a lot of foot traffic. Our things are handcrafted, so malls are a terrible match for us, because that's where people look for mass produced goods. We do our budgets, then go for the most prime downtown location we can afford. That has really paid off. Our two locations are in historic towns in wine country with a central plaza. In one town, we had the option of the most trafficked street off the plaza or on the plaza itself for the same rent, plus an additional $30,000 up front. We thought long and hard, and then chose the plaza, figuring it would pay off over the course of the lease. It paid off in the first year.

Exactly what I have now — the center position in a small strip mall with up-to-the door parking. We are surrounded by an affluent neighborhood, with a combination of expendable income and central location on one of the city's most heavily trafficked commute routes. My space is flanked by a pet food store, which brings in weekly return customers, and a large drug store, which draws frequent visitors from a larger area. Also, there are several other must-stop destinations such as a dry cleaner, liquor store, video store, Barnes and Noble, and a few restaurants. The constant traffic is key, and our big store front windows capture that audience. I did a lot of homework to find a great location; I was on another errand when I tripped over the perfect space, right under my nose!