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why are we downtown?
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Why are we downtown on Main Street in a 115 year old house? Because we choose to be! Where else would you find the unique flavors of a community - old gnarly trees on garden patios, civil war trenches next to your parking lot, herb gardens that attract monarch butterflies... When you're a bookstore & cafe, flavor is pretty darn important! When you're a city or community, flavor is no less important - we feel a critical part of that flavor is at the heart of the city, it's downtown.
Downtown, we're part of your neighborhood.
Whereas parking is plentiful downtown (albeit a little different than miles of concrete), you don't HAVE to drive to get to us. You can walk or bike from your home - we're only a few blocks away from neighborhoods, schools, churches.
Downtown, we're part of your community.
Part of our mission at Stone Soup is to be a gathering place, a place of connection. Yes it's easy to buy products on-line or feel the comfort of "known" terrain in the big box store, but a locally-owned business can provide a unique "experience" or connection to the community that they operate in. Our thinking at Stone Soup is .... with the beauty of the mountains & the South River running through us, downtown Waynesboro should celebrate & reflect back a piece of that natural beauty. With the bounty of our valley, we need to provide folks a "taste" of great locally-sourced homemade food, local music, local art on our walls, or just a place to relax outside amidst garden patios, plugged into our wifi - or unplugged, sipping a glass of Virginia wine. We get an opportunity to share this "taste of local" with folks across the globe when Appalachian Trail hikers & Blue Ridge bikers or drivers, wander downtown from Afton mountain. We are just a relection of all the good things here in Waynesboro.
Downtown, we're part of your economy.
Let's look at those stats again ... for every $1 spent in the community, downtown merchants return 60 cents as opposed to the 6 cents big box discounters retain. Keep this in mind when you pull out your wallet to buy something - It is YOUR choice in WHERE you buy things that has real economic power. YOU decide where you will buy books, food, art, music and that choice makes a difference in your community. Our capitalists add a dash of spirit here at Stone Soup. We think the spirit of a business, is in the people that contribute to it - hence our employee-owner path and our "Stoneholder" customer-loyalty program. After all, we're just the pot and the stone and we're grateful to be right here amidst all the the flavors of Downtown Waynesboro. |
Waynesboro Downtown Development, Inc. n 301 West Main Street n Waynesboro, VA 22980
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