Homewood businesses up for Retailer of the Year

Several businesses with locations in Homewood have been nominated for Alabama Retailer of the Year Awards, including Ashley Mac’s, Susan Gordon Pottery and Cookie Fix, among others.

“It feels amazing,” said Amy Jason, owner of Cookie Fix. “I’m very proud of our team and what we’ve done in the last five years.”

“I’m very flattered and humbled,” said Susan Gordon, owner of Susan Gordon Pottery. “There are so many amazing shops in Birmingham that I feel very honored to be included on the nominees list.”

“We were extremely excited, grateful and humbled by the opportunity, with lots of great businesses all over Alabama, especially here in Birmingham,” said Ashley McMakin, owner of Ashley Mac’s. “We didn’t know nominations were even up when I got the email. Of course I’d heard of it [the award], but I didn’t know it was going on already, so we were super excited to see that.”

McMakin, Jason and Gordon said they credit their nominations to their commitment to customer service as well as their unique business models.

Jason said Cookie Fix refers to all of their employees as cookie consultants instead of “cashiers” or “cookie makers.”

Cookie consultants don’t just sell cookies to customers, she said, they build relationships by discovering customers’ “needs, wants and likes.”

Cookie Fix also sets themselves apart from other bakeries through their cookies, Jason said.

All of their cookies are slightly underbaked, which makes them “crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside,” she said.

Unlike many bakeries that bake all of their cookies at the beginning of the day, Cookie Fix makes batches of cookies throughout the day to make sure every cookie is warm and fresh, Jason said.

“If you come in at four o’clock in the afternoon, there’s a good chance a pan of cookies just came out of the oven, so you can select something warm or something that’s been there an hour or two, not since the wee hours of the morning,” Jason said.

Susan Gordon Pottery makes everything by hand in their storefront, which means their customers won’t be able to find their products anywhere else, Gordon said.

On top of providing one-of-a-kind items to their customers, she said, they can also see staff members making products through glass doors that lead to the back of the store, which adds to a customer’s experience because they are able to meet the creators of certain pieces.

Like Cookie Fix, developing relationships with their customers and putting them first are top priorities at Susan Gordon Pottery, Gordon said.

“There will be customers that come in the store and don’t see what they want,” Gordon said. “They’ll get put on an email list so they can be notified about when things come back in stock or sometimes our team will make personal phone calls and say, ‘Hey, I know you’ve been looking for this, it just came back in stock today.’ We really want to go the extra mile to take care of our customers.”

Ashley Mac’s started out as a catering company in 2007, McMakin said. When they opened their first location in Bluff Park, it was strictly used as a catering kitchen until requests from customers prompted McMakin to change the company’s business model.

“We started doing gourmet-to-go once my catering customers were requesting smaller amounts of the same items that we cater because they just wanted to take it to their house or their beach trip or to their friend that had a baby,” McMakin said.

Since then, Ashley Mac’s has grown to offer catering services, gourmet-to-go products and a cafe, she said.

“I think having those three different business lines sets us apart a little bit,” McMakin said. “We hope to continue to be set apart by our values and our core culture at Ashley Mac’s of grace, treating our employees with dignity and then them, in turn, treating our customers with kindness and grace while serving them.”

At Three Sheets, store manager Caitlin Green said the staff is excited to be nominated for the award. Three Sheets offers fine linens, furniture, home décor, candles, towels, baby items, pajamas, jewelry, lamps, mirrors and more, and has been in business for nearly 30 years.

“I don’t think anyone could have predicted what 2020 had in store for us all. Obviously our sales dropped because we made the difficult decision to close our doors for about eight weeks,” said store owner Babbie Styslinger. “During that time we shifted gears and opened an online shop. We were working with a skeleton crew and filling online orders.”

The store has benefited from a high volume of product and a new building this year, Styslinger said in the store’s application for the award.

“Because we have had so much product, our sales have continued to grow over the last several years,” she said.

At Styslinger’s other store, At Home, general manager Dykes Culp said they are “really excited” to be nominated. The business has also been in Homewood for nearly 30 years and is based in Birmingham, offering furniture, fashion, Turkish rugs and the experience of a “boutique within a boutique,” Culp said.

SoHo Social and SoHo Standard have both been nominated for the award, a first for owners Dave Horn and Taylor Hughes.

“It’s humbling; it’s kind of cool,” Horn said. “It says we’re doing something right.”

SoHo Social is like a “neighborhood block party,” with good food, good service and fun, Horn said. The pair were fortunate to find a spot in Homewood, Horn said.

Seibels Cottage has also been nominated. Owner Kelly Seibels said the “rustic, contemporary furniture” store has been in Homewood for 22 years in the same location.

“It’s kind of lifted up with Homewood,” Seibels said. “Homewood has been a rising tide.”

The store has become a “destination place” for furniture, offering installations, shipping and custom furniture, Seibels said, along with being a “second home” for the “casual lifestyle” of the beach and mountains.

Being nominated for the first time is a “real honor,” Seibels said.

Taco Mama was also nominated, but owner Will Haver was unable to comment for this story.