National Small Business week is this week. Dating back to 1963, this is a week to acknowledge the contributions of American small business owners and entrepreneurs. Below are some features from Community Impact Newspaper that focus on local business owners in Richmond.

Treasure Hunter’s Gallery

In the 12 years that Dame has been in business on Morton Street, she said she has made an effort to provide unique gift items and historic decorative features to match the spirit of the building.

“We try to get things you can’t find at a chain store,” Dame said. “We use a lot of different sources when we go to market, so we aren’t limited to products from one region of the country.”

Dame said she hopes the store will give customers a wide array of goods and an entertaining shopping experience, while making its own history in the downtown neighborhood.
“We want [customers] to remember they had a good time and have them come back,” she said.

Bombay Grill

Owner Jay Patel and his wife, Kalpana, opened the restaurant in 2008. For the couple, preparing north Indian cuisine is a labor of love.

“My favorite aspect is when people [are] talking while they are dining,” Patel said. “That makes us feel like, ‘Yes, one more happy family.’

If not for one family stuck in a traffic jam on FM 359 nearly eight years ago, Bombay Grill would have closed its doors in the Pecan Grove Plaza,”

“In the beginning, it was very difficult. At one point, we decided to lock this door and get out. But the guy who owns this plaza said, ‘OK, you can try for another six months,” Patel said.
Shortly into the sixth-month extension, that family was stuck in traffic and wandered into Bombay Grill—the only customers Patel had that night.

That family recommended Bombay Grill to four other families who visited the restaurant the next night, he said.

“That particular month, instead of losing money, I broke even,” he said. “I was like, ‘Thank God for this particular family who walk[ed] in this door [and] appreciate[d] what we are doing.’”

Joseph’s

Joseph’s in downtown Richmond was founded in 1903 by owner Michael Josephs’ great-grandmother, Mary, a widowed Lebanese immigrant and mother of five. It has changed over the past century to become the business it is today.

Since 1903 Joseph’s has been a merchant for coffee, a general mercantile store, a furniture and gift store, and today it is known for its coffee bar, cigar bar and vintage gun shop.

Lomonte’s Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria

Lomonte’s Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria has been serving Italian cuisine at 815 Plantation Drive, Richmond, for 10 years. After working at his mother’s restaurant near Katy, Braden Lomonte decided to follow in his mother’s footsteps and open his own location.

“The original Lomonte’s is his mother’s restaurant,” General Manager Bruce Bell said. “Our menus are different, but we have some of the same [dishes], because his recipes—he got them from her.”

The restaurant’s family atmosphere extends to the surrounding community as Bell said he tries to hire locally.

“It gives a lot of these kids their first jobs,” he said. “It’s just a local family restaurant, and loyalty like that ends up paying off.”

LC Floral Designs
When LC Floral Designs owner Lucas Chavez was a boy, he and his friends would visit the local flower shop, located at 204 E. Hwy. 90A, as a way to spend summer afternoons.

“As a kid, I lived five minutes away from the flower shop,” Chavez said. “As little wandering kids in the summer, we would want to find ways to kill time and we would walk into the flower shop.”Chavez has taken that childhood love—and that same shop—and turned it into his dream business.

Since 2004, Chavez has been growing LC Floral Designs into the go-to spot for local weddings, proms and a variety of events in Richmond.

“It’s been a blessing in every sense of the word,” Chavez said. “The community has embraced us.”

Victoria’s Mexican Grill & Bar

Although they have been neighbors for more than 15 years, Jhony Virreira and Pablo Santibanes—who have a combined 30-plus year in the restaurant industry—needed the help of their sons to come together to open Victoria’s Mexican Grill & Bar.

“We were living across the street for 15 years. We never shook hands. We never talked. We never had a beer together,” co-owner and chef Santibanes said. “But, our kids are best friends. One day, my son told him I was looking to open my own restaurant, and he had the same idea. He decided to cross the street and come talk to me about it.”

The duo has taken that conversation and turned it into what Virreira calls the best-kept secret in Richmond.

Enchanted Gardens and Enchanted Forest

Enchanted Gardens and Enchanted Forest in Richmond grew courtesy of the green thumbs of co-founders Betty and Gary Lenderman. Betty, a biologist, had a love for gardening, and Gary, a chemist, “got pulled into it,” he said. In the 1970s, the couple started their first business, Country Gardens.

From there, Gary and Betty’s passion for gardening led to additional locations. Three of their five children now manage the family businesses.   

“It’s a lot of work, but people like to see all aspects of [gardening],” daughter Judy Ulke said. “I think with advancements in technology, people are craving something that’s more tactile.”

Il Primo Pizza & Wings

High school friends Si Mendoza and Danny Caplinger met in Naples, Florida when they worked together at a pizza restaurant. In 2009, they decided to launch their own pizzeria, so they modeled their restaurant after their employer’s business and started to look for an ideal location.

Although they had no connection to Richmond, he said the area drew them in because of the family-focused atmosphere. In April 2009 they opened Il Primo Pizza & Wings at 8019 W. Grand Parkway S., Ste. 1035.

Mendoza said one reason they chose the location is because it has enough space to seat roughly a hundred people, which allows them the space to host fundraisers and community events.

“Here in Richmond, it still has that classic neighborhood feeling. People know each other’s names. For us, it’s been an amazing experience,” he said.

Lindsay Elizabeth Photography

Lindsay Elizabeth Lacy likes to say that photography found her. As a Texas Tech University freshman, Lacy was unsure of her career path, but she decided to take a chance with a minor in photo communication. From there, she filled her portfolio with things like oil pump jacks.

Her break into portraiture happened in 2008 when she was hired as a wedding photographer at Studio 563 in Houston.

“I learned more from [Studio 563] in a year than I did in any college class,” Lacy said. “There’s the business of photography, and then there’s learning how to deal with clients and learning how to deal with brides. And that’s not something I was ever taught in a classroom.”

After two years as a Studio 563 photographer, Lacy was ready to start her own studio in 2010. To ensure she is more than just a face behind a camera, Lacy invites her clients into her home-based studio, which she shares with her husband, Stephen, and their three rescue dogs, Jackson, Millie and Scratch.

“I want to give my clients a really great experience, and I want them to look back on their images [years from now] and love them,” Lacy said. “I also try to be a little more than the person who just shows up to take pictures.”

Trough Juice Bar

October 2015, Robin Rosen and her family set out to bring fresh juice, a whole food menu and natural beauty products to downtown Richmond. They launched Trough Juice Bar at 107 S. Third St. in a historic building they had painstakingly renovated over the course of more than a year.

“We have four girls, and we even put the sons-in-law to work,” she said.

Her husband, lawyer Steven Rocket Rosen, said the cafe and juice bar is a family affair, with everyone pitching in to help.

“I was diagnosed [with stage 111c colorectal cancer in 2012], and I immediately started juicing,” Robin said. “The effects [of juicing], even after just two weeks, were extraordinary.”

Robin is now cancer-free, and she said Trough has become a place where people gather to talk about healthy living and natural lifestyles.

“People have been so kind and supportive,” Robin said. “They feel free to talk, and they know they’re going to feel support. There are so many people that just relate to it and they feel comfortable talking about personal things, and that adds an additional healing aspect.”