Topics: Buffalo, Local business, Small business, Williamsville, NY, Williamsville Plaza

In this episode of Retail Retold, host Chris welcomes Valerie Warren, the dynamic founder and owner of Mabel’s Landing, a women’s clothing store in Williamsville, NY.

Valerie shares her inspiring journey of stepping into entrepreneurship from over 30 years in accounting following the closure of a beloved local store, Mabel Danahy’s. She talks about her transition from accounting to retail, the process of setting up her store, and the challenges and successes she encountered along the way. Valerie discusses the importance of location, her selective inventory approach, and how she maintains a personal touch through unique offerings like gift wrapping and in-house alterations.

She highlights the value of having a supportive team and the vital role of vendor relationships in her business success. Listeners also get a glimpse of Valerie’s love for the local community, her stance on shopping local, and her thoughts on possibly expanding Mabel’s Landing in the future.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:23 Valerie’s Background and Journey to Retail
01:28 Transition from Accounting to Retail
03:18 The Legacy of Mabel Danahy’s
04:48 Starting Mabel’s Landing
05:32 Building Relationships with Vendors
06:38 Choosing the Right Location
1:17 Challenges and Surprises in Retail
3:22 Customer Experience and Unique Offerings
18:44 Future Plans and Final Thoughts
20:14 Fun Questions and Conclusion

About Retail Retold:

The Retail Retold Podcast highlights community retailer stories from across the country and gives a behind-the-scenes perspective from business leaders in both retail and real estate industries. The show’s episodes contain valuable insights that help solve the needs of entrepreneurs and real estate pros. Join host Chris Ressa and new guests weekly for amazing insights and thought-provoking stories.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Chris Ressa: Welcome to Retail Retold, everyone. Today, I’m joined by Valerie Warren. Valerie is the founder and owner of Mabel’s Landing. I am excited for her to be here. She is based in Williamsville, New York. She is calling in from her store right now. Welcome to the show, Valerie.

[00:00:19] Valerie Warren: Thank you very much. And thanks for inviting me.

[00:00:21] Chris Ressa: Yeah, no problem. So Valerie, tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do.

[00:00:27] Valerie Warren: Okay. I am a, an accountant by trade. I had the opportunity to try this out when another store closed and I decided to give it a go. I’ve always wanted to have my own business. So, here we are!

[00:00:44] Chris Ressa: Is this your first store that you’ve ever owned?

[00:00:47] Valerie Warren: Yes. Yes, it is.

[00:00:49] Chris Ressa: And were you doing accounting work before this? Yes,

[00:00:53] Valerie Warren: I was. I was an accounting manager. I always helped out at the old store on the weekends and got to know all the ladies there. When I decided to give this a try because they were closing and Western New York still needed a ladies clothing store to, so that women could go and try on clothes and, um, feel the fabrics and not have to purchase things online.

[00:01:17] Valerie Warren: I just decided to try it and I asked all the ladies there if they’d come with, and here we are.

[00:01:24] Chris Ressa: All right, well, we’ll get to that in a second. So how long were you in accounting?

[00:01:31] Valerie Warren: Oh wow. I don’t want to admit how many years, but many, many, many, over 30.

[00:01:38] Chris Ressa: Oh, that’s not that long. Don’t worry. So are you born and raised in Western New York?

[00:01:46] Valerie Warren: Born and raised in, in, uh, Western New York. Yes. I moved out of, I moved to California a couple of times, but I moved back. So I’m back here again. So.

[00:01:55] Chris Ressa: So. I imagine you’re a Bills fan.

[00:01:59] Valerie Warren: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely

[00:02:01] Chris Ressa: are. Are you one of the crazy ones at the games that I see on tv?

[00:02:05] Valerie Warren: No . No

[00:02:06] Chris Ressa: Have you seen these people on tv, the fans? Oh, yes.

[00:02:09] Valerie Warren: Are you kidding? Yes. And the ones in the middle of winter with no shirts on.

[00:02:13] Chris Ressa: Yes,

[00:02:13] Valerie Warren: they’re crazy.

[00:02:14] Chris Ressa: It’s a wild, it’s a wild thing to watch, but I find it fascinating and, and pretty cool that. The town has like, is so passionate and rallied behind this football team.

[00:02:27] Chris Ressa: I think it’s pretty cool.

[00:02:28] Valerie Warren: Yes. The Bills have had a huge fan base always. As long as I can remember but the fans are always out there and very supportive and it’s just, it makes for a great a great game and a great community because everybody participates.

[00:02:47] Chris Ressa: Josh Allen fan?

[00:02:48] Valerie Warren: Oh yeah.

[00:02:49] Chris Ressa: Yeah, I think everyone in Buffalo loves Josh Allen.

[00:02:53] Chris Ressa: He walks on water there, Josh Allen.

[00:02:55] Valerie Warren: Josh Allen, Dawson Knox. All of them. They’re great. They’re great guys.

[00:03:01] Chris Ressa: Awesome. Okay. You were an accounting manager for a couple of years. And, and you mentioned something that I didn’t know. On the weekends you were working at this clothing store.

[00:03:15] Valerie Warren: Right. I would help them out.

[00:03:16] Chris Ressa: And what was the name of the clothing store?

[00:03:18] Valerie Warren: The name of the clothing store was Mabel Danay’s.

[00:03:22] Chris Ressa: Okay. And tell me about that store.

[00:03:25] Valerie Warren: Okay. Mabel Danahy’s was in business for almost 98 years. They started downtown in downtown Buffalo 98 years ago. And eventually moved out to the suburbs. It was originally started by Mabel Danahy and her sister.

[00:03:42] Valerie Warren: I don’t recall her sister’s first name, but they actually started up this woman’s clothing store. That long ago and it was a very well known department store boutique in, in Western New York and in downtown Buffalo. Um, so when they decided to close, it was just after covid when they decided to close and retire and.

[00:04:12] Valerie Warren: Truthfully, there’s so few places to shop in Western New York, especially since we’ve lost even our Lord and Taylor’s and department stores like that that used to be in Western New York. I just, I decided we still need this. I talked to my husband about it and he knew I’d always wanted to own my own business.

[00:04:33] Valerie Warren: I didn’t expect it to be a ladies clothing store. But here we are and we’re doing well. We’ve been in business for exactly two years and or the store has been open for two years. And we’re doing okay. We’re doing okay.

[00:04:48] Chris Ressa: So you decide to open a ladies clothing store. There’s a lot that goes into that.

You have to decide you have to ideate the concept, like what type of clothes are you going to sell? So what type of clothes do you sell?

[00:04:59] Valerie Warren: I would say it’s moderate to more upscale women’s clothes mostly sportswear with some dressier pieces as well into evening wear. We carry most of the same lines that the original Mabel Danay’s carried.

So when we started up, we were able to bring on many of those lines, so we’re able to keep a lot of our customer base. However, we’re also introducing newer lines and a few younger lines as well to, increase our customer base.

[00:05:32] Chris Ressa: Did did you called you obviously called these vendors who sold these clothes and you were like, hey, I know you Mabel’s Danaheys, I’m going to open a store.

[How do I get started here? Is it what you thought how to do all that?

[00:05:47] Valerie Warren: It was. The girls that we’re working at Danahy’s really helped out a lot because they, as soon as we decided to do this, they started making the phone calls and said, can we still hang on to you as one of our suppliers but they were awesome.

[00:06:04] Valerie Warren: They were really so supportive. And the vendors were as well, because. Danay’s always worked very well with these vendors. So that helped us a lot. Our buyer from Danay’s came along on board for the first year and she introduced me to all of these vendors. So it, it made that part of the job easy.

[00:06:28] Chris Ressa: Got it. So you start calling these vendors. Did you put together And then you have to start, you’re like, I need to find a location. Why didn’t you stay in the location where the original was?

[00:06:42] Valerie Warren: It was very large. I wasn’t that thrilled with the actual location. I didn’t think it was a great, it was difficult to park there.

[00:06:52] Valerie Warren: There were other stores in there. There was a grocery store. There was a couple of restaurants, there was a Starbucks, but it just didn’t seem to have the right, it wasn’t the right location. It was easy to get to, but it was difficult to park when you got there. And one thing I think a lot of people like about our new location is.

[00:07:16] Valerie Warren: You can always find a place to park. And it’s just a little more convenient. Not quite off the, as far off the beaten path as this one is.

[00:07:25] Chris Ressa: How did you find this location?

[00:07:27] Valerie Warren: I started making some phone calls. It’s a funny story. I was, I saw different locations that had rental signs on them and I would call those numbers. And I found one that was a little bit farther out than our current location. And I called that number, left a message, I was leaving messages everywhere.

[00:07:52] Valerie Warren: And when I left that message, a gentleman called me right back immediately. It was the first call I had, and he was a real estate broker for commercial properties. And Jim Geiger, he helped me find our current location. It’s in a back then it was an up and it was a older plaza, but it was up and coming again.

[00:08:17] Valerie Warren: A lot of the spaces were empty. By the time we decided to lease here. Most of the spots were filled and now I think they’re all filled.

[00:08:27] Chris Ressa: We leased it up.

[00:08:30] Valerie Warren: Yes, we leased it up. That’s for sure. But it’s just a great location. Convenient to so many different things. It’s got a wonderful mix of other storefronts and restaurants and.

[00:08:46] Valerie Warren: There’s a dance studio here. There’s all kinds of stuff.

[00:08:49] Chris Ressa: Williamsville Place, we always thought this had a lot of, there was a lot of opportunity in this property and one of the things we did here that we don’t normally do most investors, real estate developers, owners would advise against this.

But we took a shot here because we thought we needed to in the environment we were in at the time is we’ve redeveloped and we made the new facade and that nice white brick and all that stuff. We did that before we had it fully leased. Normally. You would do it in conjunction with the tenants.

[00:09:24] Chris Ressa: So you weren’t spending this money and not, and maybe not getting any tenants. We did that. That did help that it was a, if you build it, they will come scenario did help.

And one of the things I’ll tell you what now you won’t go hungry in the shopping center. We’ve got so many restaurants in the showers that you won’t go hungry here, that’s for sure.

And most notably and recently. Which is ironic normally, like the anchor, the like grocer or anchor tenant is the first one. It was one of the last has, have you gotten any new customers since Aldi’s opened?

[00:09:59] Valerie Warren: A few. Yes. Aldi’s the Dollar Tree. Yeah. It’s amazing how many people! And Federal Meat. Oh my gosh, the people that come in from Federal, it’s amazing. But really from all the different locations, the pet store, it’s amazing.

[00:10:19] Chris Ressa: Do you dine at a bunch of the restaurants? Do you grab lunch at a lot of places?

[00:10:22] Valerie Warren: Superb gourmet the Subway. I get my, so many of my groceries at federal.

[00:10:28] Valerie Warren: Yeah. I guess the answer would be yes.

[00:10:31] Chris Ressa: Got it. So the convenience is good. So you made a call you guys met with Josh and you made a deal to lease the space. Was the process of opening the store from the real estate Both in terms of process and cost did you spend more than you thought?

[00:10:49] Valerie Warren: No. I have to tell you, it’s funny, when Jim brought me over to this property and I said, oh, is it the spot with the big, beautiful gray brick façade? And he said, Yeah. And I said, I want it. It was, it’s just a beautiful setting for a lady’s clothing boutique.

[00:11:16] Chris Ressa: Amazing. So the, did you have some idea of what type of sales you were going to do in the shopping center when you opened?

[00:11:26] Valerie Warren: Hopes of what type of, yes, absolutely.

[00:11:30] Chris Ressa: And was your original projection? Did you meet that? Did you go below it? Did you exceed it?

[00:11:37] Valerie Warren: I think we’re just about spot on.

[00:11:39] Chris Ressa: Wow.

[00:11:40] Valerie Warren: There, the thing is you should

[00:11:42] Chris Ressa: forecast for other retailers. No, I know .

[00:11:44] Valerie Warren: Funny though because I didn’t realize, I knew there were down times and uptime times in the retail industry, but I didn’t realize how low the valleys are.

[00:11:56] Valerie Warren: And it’s. It’s tough. There are times when it can be very,

[00:12:01] Chris Ressa: management. Yeah. It’s

[00:12:03] Valerie Warren: crazy.

[00:12:04] Chris Ressa: So we’re

[00:12:05] Valerie Warren: learning.

[00:12:05] Chris Ressa: What are the low times right now?

[00:12:08] Valerie Warren: January is a tough time, middle of summer, June, July, tough times. And now fall’s coming, fall’s here, and people are looking for fall clothing, coats, and we’ve got them.

[00:12:24] Chris Ressa: Okay, good. So we’re starting

[00:12:25] Valerie Warren: to pick up.

[00:12:28] Chris Ressa: So I see behind you, do you guys do sewing or tailoring

[00:12:34] Valerie Warren: here? We do, but this is, no, this is my office. I’m sitting at my desk, but you are looking at our gift wrap area.

[00:12:42] Chris Ressa: Oh, that’s what that is. Got it. We

[00:12:45] Valerie Warren: still offer, it’s one of those nice, old fashioned perks that we still offer free gift wrap on all of our, and people love the fact that we still gift wrap pieces and our gift wrap is fabulous.

[00:13:01] Chris Ressa: I love that you do gift wrapping because if any, my wife still can’t believe how terrible of a rapper I am of gifts. So a place that offers gift wrapping is amazing for me because I am so bad at wrapping gifts. You have to come

[00:13:19] Valerie Warren: shopping.

[00:13:20] Chris Ressa: I have to come to Mabel’s and grab something. And The brands you carry, are they brands you can get at a lot of different stores?

[00:13:29] Chris Ressa: Are they unique? What, tell me about the brands that you carry.

[00:13:32] Valerie Warren: Most of them are fairly unique. Most of them We’re the exclusive vendor for but we also to offer unique pieces. We don’t want our customers to see themselves coming and going. So even when we’re ordering, we only order perhaps three or four things.

[00:13:52] Valerie Warren: Three pieces, the same style in three different sizes. We don’t order too many things in quantities more than three. Interesting. Keep our. Our inventory unique.

[00:14:07] Chris Ressa: Yeah, fresh. Wow. And From when people come in the store, are the, what are they telling you about the product and what you have and everything?

[00:14:20] Valerie Warren: Most of the people that come in, especially some of the new ones love what we have. Our customers like the fact that they can find something that’s not a cookie cutter. Outfit, it’s going to be fairly unique and if there’s something someone’s looking for many times, we’ll try and find it. So it, we, that’s one of the things that we like to offer.

[00:14:44] Chris Ressa: Got it. Are the, talk to me about pricing. Where do you fall in the pricing world? Is it higher priced, moderate? What, where do you fall? Is it premium?

[00:14:55] Valerie Warren: We’re not premium. I would say moderate to higher priced. We’re not real top designer. We don’t offer that because this is Buffalo. And we don’t not trying to be funny about it, but people don’t really look for that.

[00:15:12] Valerie Warren: They want to find unique pieces. Some of them do want exclusive designer pieces, but we offer more moderate to higher price.

[00:15:22] Chris Ressa: Got it. And the, you do gift wrapping. Is there, you said you do tailoring too?

[00:15:30] Valerie Warren: We do. We have alterations for the items that women buy here. Yes.

[00:15:35] Chris Ressa: Got it. So it is an old fashioned boutique clothing store.

[00:15:40] Chris Ressa: Yes. I love it. And see, everybody, with the right leadership, the right product, some of the old stuff still works today.

[00:15:50] Chris Ressa: Do you sell online?

[00:15:52] Valerie Warren: No.

[00:15:54] Chris Ressa: Okay.

[00:15:54] Valerie Warren: Someday maybe, but based on our staffing, we just, we don’t have the people to do it. Number one we’d have to increase our inventory so much in order to do that.

[00:16:09] Valerie Warren: Our customer base, they want to see things in person. So that’s what we’re catering to right now. I’d love to offer some things online, but someday.

[00:16:20] Chris Ressa: You know what? I like the customer base that wants to go to the store. Being an owner, working for a company that owns shopping centers where people go to shop.

[00:16:27] Valerie Warren: I

[00:16:28] Chris Ressa: like the people who want to go to the store. That’s great.

[00:16:32] Valerie Warren: And we like to shop local.

[00:16:35] Chris Ressa: Totally shop local.

[00:16:35] Valerie Warren: Very important.

[00:16:37] Chris Ressa: What’s the biggest surprise since you opened the store?

[00:16:40] Valerie Warren: Ooh,

[00:16:41] Valerie Warren: That’s a good question because today’s been a terrible tech day. Maybe all the tech things and the internet and I’m pretty good with it, but

[00:16:49] Chris Ressa: like the POS system and all that stuff.

[00:16:51] Valerie Warren: Yes. I feel like I’m pretty tech savvy. There’s so many. issues with things going down or.

[00:17:00] Chris Ressa: Yeah, I hear you.

[00:17:02] Chris Ressa: I hear you. The anything as far as any surprises on the real estate side when you were like going to get the lease and open the store, any surprises on the real estate side?

[00:17:17] Valerie Warren: When we were going to get the lease, then things like that. No, we’ve had a couple hiccups. Through over the last couple years.

[00:17:26] Valerie Warren: But

[00:17:28] Chris Ressa: no big surprises.

[00:17:30] Valerie Warren: No.

[00:17:31] Chris Ressa: Alright.

[00:17:31] Valerie Warren: I, my accounting background is so diverse. I used to for 12 years I worked for a private school here in western New York. They had 30 acres. Of land and 13 buildings, and some of them were really old buildings. So I’m used to

[00:17:49] Chris Ressa: things happen,

[00:17:49] Valerie Warren: issues with the plumbing and the electricity and the trees and the everything.

[00:17:54] Valerie Warren: So nothing has really surprised me that much. All I can say is if there’s an issue, if I. Text Jeff, it’s taken care of immediately, which is the best part of this whole thing. It just, he’s been our savior as far as so many of the different issues that may have come up with the property.

[00:18:17] Chris Ressa: What would if someone who’s listening, who’s thinking about opening a store, what’s some advice you would give them?

[00:18:27] Valerie Warren: Make sure you have a team with you who’s had a lot of experience with retail and the buying.

[00:18:35] Chris Ressa: That’s a good answer. Property

[00:18:36] Valerie Warren: management,

[00:18:38] Chris Ressa: the team. I think you nailed it. That is a good, the team

[00:18:40] Valerie Warren: is, that’s the key.

[00:18:42] Chris Ressa: Yeah. Totally. Okay, so I appreciate you coming on and sharing a bit about your experience in opening your first store. One of the questions. I always ask new store owners, do you foresee a second store happening?

[00:19:03] Chris Ressa: No.

[00:19:03] Valerie Warren: I don’t think so. One and

[00:19:05] Chris Ressa: done for you.

[00:19:06] Valerie Warren: You know what? The exclusivity of this is great. I have a great team. They’re all experienced and to be perfectly honest, trying to hire new employees these days is difficult. These gals have the right, work ethic.

[00:19:27] Chris Ressa: Got it.

[00:19:27] Valerie Warren: And hiring new people, sometimes it’s tough to find somebody with the right work ethic. So I love being here. I would love to have a larger space.

[00:19:37] Chris Ressa: Okay.

[00:19:38] Valerie Warren: But opening up a second space, I don’t know.

[00:19:42] Chris Ressa: So we should stay in touch about a possible expansion in the future.

[00:19:46] Valerie Warren: Yes. I keep teasing that I want to move into one of the little Pods next door in the golf shop.

[00:19:53] Chris Ressa: Oh boy.

[00:19:53] Valerie Warren: One of the practice pods.

[00:19:55] Chris Ressa: Got it don’t tell the golf people!

On that note, see that’s another cool tenant, right? We got a golf store in this project It’s a pretty cool unique project.

Okay, I want to take us to the last part of the show I’ve got three questions for you. They’re fun questions. Are you ready for question one?

What extinct retailer do you wish would come back from the dead?

[00:20:24] Valerie Warren: They’re local family owned businesses one near and dear to my heart Jenss.

[00:20:31] Chris Ressa: What did Jenss sell?

[00:20:32] Valerie Warren: Jenss was a fabulous department store.

Anything from men’s women’s clothing, kids, clothing, shoes, fabulous shoe department gifts. Was a great store. The other one would be LL Berger. They were very similar, but those were my favorites.

[00:20:52] Chris Ressa: Question two. What’s the last item over 20 you bought in a store?

[00:20:58] Valerie Warren: Not grocery related? No, it could

[00:21:01] Chris Ressa: be, but

[00:21:01] Valerie Warren: Oh dear.

[00:21:02] Chris Ressa: Whatever

[00:21:03] Valerie Warren: you want. A sweater.

[00:21:05] Chris Ressa: From where?

[00:21:07] Valerie Warren: Here. Got it.

[00:21:10] Chris Ressa: Last, I like that. Last question. Valerie, if you and I were shopping at Target, and I lost you. What aisle would I find you in?

[00:21:18] Valerie Warren: Housewares.

[00:21:19] Chris Ressa: Housewares, got it.

All right, Valerie, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Keep rocking and wish you nothing but success.

[00:21:31] Chris Ressa: Thanks for coming on.

[00:21:32] Valerie Warren: Chris, thanks so much. I’ve never done this before, so thank you very much. It’s been fun. You’ve made it easy. I hope I was able to answer your question.

[00:21:40] Chris Ressa: You nailed it.

[00:21:41] Valerie Warren: Thank you so much.

[00:21:42] Chris Ressa: Thank you.