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Business

Sebastopol flower shop to close retail space, move business online — but not before Valentine’s Day

in Business

Sebastopol floral shop California Sister Plant & Flower is closing its Barlow location after seven years — and moving its business online.

Owner Nichole Skalski attributed the closure to rising costs and changes in trends surrounding retail shopping, with customers not spending money like they used to.

“The retail environment has become extremely unpredictable,” Skalski said. “It’s been a long, slow process of trying to figure out what we could do to make it work and we decided it would be better to go back to our roots and do what we do best.”

California Sister will officially close its retail shop March 5, but Skalski and her business partner, Kathrin Green, will continue to provide fresh bouquets and cater flowers for weddings and events through the company’s website.

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Daughter helps family restaurant in Santa Rosa with viral TikTok video

in Business/Food

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KGO) — The pandemic hit small businesses especially hard and many restaurants are still feeling the lasting impact.

A daughter took to social media in hopes that a few people might come back to her family’s restaurant, Lee’s Noodle House, in Santa Rosa, California.

Twenty-one-year-old Jennifer Le posted a seven-second video on TikTok showing her dad leaning against the counter. She wrote, “It makes me so sad to see my parents just wait for customers to walk through the door to eat at their Vietnamese restaurant.” She added music and the lyrics said, ‘I don’t care how long it takes.’

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Sonoma County business owners preparing to reopen after days of power outages, flood concerns kept customers away

in Business

Some Sonoma County businesses are having to deal with impacts from the latest round of severe weather.

Several local restaurants, wineries and hotels had to close the past few days after the storm’s brunt was felt Monday. Businesses have been moving perishable foods to non-flood prone restaurants, raising furniture off the ground to prevent water damage and bringing in employees to help clear properties. Amid the closures, little to no revenue is coming in to help offset the added expense.

Here’s how some businesses in Sonoma County are being impacted by the storms:

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‘It was time to jump on that opportunity’: Santa Rosa resident opens sushi restaurant at 18 years old

in Business/Food

The conventional wisdom holds that teenagers spend too much time on the internet and not enough time learning. It also holds that the path to success in business goes through college.

But Robert Phouthavong is laying waste to those ideas.

The 18-year-old Santa Rosa High School graduate opened his first restaurant, Makizushi, just before Christmas, and he’s setting his sights on more.

He began working in a Sebastopol sushi restaurant with his father at age 15, and used popular platforms like YouTube and TikTok to research what it would take to open his own establishment, how to pass inspections and how to apply for permits and licenses.

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Holiday shopping season is in full swing, Sonoma County businesses seeing lag in sales

in Business

The holiday shopping season is in full swing as consumers continue their race to the register while combating inflation and rising prices on such daily items as groceries.

Small businesses in Sonoma County contacted by The Press Democrat are seeing mixed results when it comes to sales this holiday season, with some enjoying similar year-over-year turnouts while others are seeing a significant lack in customers.

A National Retail Federation, the nation’s most prominent trade organization for stores and boutiques, found that consumers want to shop in person again and are likely hitting the brick-and-mortar stores more than purchasing online.

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Sonoma County’s Luther Burbank Savings being sold to Washington Federal in $654 million deal

in Business

Santa Rosa-based Luther Burbank and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Luther Burbank Savings, is being acquired by Seattle-based Washington Federal in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $654 million.

Conducting business mostly as Washington Federal Bank, as of Sept. 30, Washington Federal had total assets of $20.8 billion, total loans of $16.3 billion and total deposits of $16 billion with 201 branches in eight Western states.

California-chartered Luther Burbank Savings reported total assets of $7.9 billion, total loans of $6.9 billion and total deposits of $5.8 billion. It has 10 California branches, a branch in Washington, six loan production offices in California and one loan production office in Oregon.

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BevZero and Summerland Form Strategic Partnership to Offer White Label Non-Alcoholic Wines

in Business

Santa Rosa, California–(Newsfile Corp. – November 15, 2022) – Beverage industry leaders BevZero and Summerland Wine Brands announced a strategic partnership to bring non-alcoholic wines to market. BevZero’s expertise in NA wine development and dealcoholization technology in collaboration with Summerland’s winemaker craftsmanship, custom label design and production capabilities, and extensive industry relationships combine to produce high-quality private label NA wines to fulfill the growing demand in the market.

The global non-alcoholic wine segment has been experiencing significant growth of over 20% YOY primarily driven by increased interest in health and wellness products that support mindful, consumption-conscious lifestyles while affording guilt-free indulgence. This partnership provides a comprehensive solution for customers to be at the forefront of this burgeoning category, offering incremental revenue and growth potential without the upfront time or capital investment.

Continue Reading on Northern News

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Sonoma State Bank earnings up 5% in Q3

in Business

Summit State Bank (Nasdaq: SSBI) reported third-quarter earnings were up 5% from the year before, partly attributed to “strong loan and deposit growth and net interest margin expansion.”

Net income for the quarter ended Sept. 30 were $3.98 million, or 59 cents per diluted share, up from $3.8 million a year before, according to the Santa Rosa-based bank holding company.

Continue Reading on North Bay Business Journal

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Sonoma County small-business lending exec named for Latino Business Leadership Awards

in Business

Priscilla Jaworski-Quintanilla of Redwood Credit Union is among North Bay Business Journal’s 2022 Latino Business Leadership Awards winners.

Here’s some information Jaworski-Quintanilla submitted:

About me

Among the first graduating class of Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa (class of 1999), I continued on with my education, graduating from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations and a minor in theater.

I’ve worked in the nonprofit and government sectors, and now financial services. Although they seem like different worlds, the common thread has been my commitment to helping people, pursuing excellence, and serving with purpose for something greater than myself. I’ve found that my varied work history has provided several benefits. It has taught me to be adaptable and not intimidated by uncertainty.

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Burlington plans to open Santa Rosa discount clothing store this spring

in Business
Burlington Stores discount clothing store is set to fill the shuttered Office Depot location in Santa Rosa Marketplace, seen here before it closed a few years ago, in spring 2022. The Santa Rosa store will be one of the new smaller-format locations the New Jersey company plans to focus growth on for “higher sales productivity” in coming years. (Keegan & Coppin Co. Inc. photo)

Burlington Stores (NYSE: BURL) plans to open a 31,000-square-foot Santa Rosa store this spring, part of a nationwide expansion of smaller locations.

The New Jersey-based discount clothing retailer sees this as supportable especially because of inflationary pressure on household budgets. Burlington focuses on in-season, fashion-focused merchandise, intended to be significantly below other retailers’ prices. Products include women’s ready-to-wear apparel, menswear, youth apparel, baby, beauty, footwear, accessories, home, toys, gifts and coats.

The coming Santa Rosa location will be in a shuttered Office Depot site at 1960 Santa Rosa Ave. in the Santa Rosa Marketplace power center. It would be Burlington’s third in the North Bay and 94th in California, a company spokesperson confirmed. Burlington also has stores in Rohnert Park and Vacaville.

CEO Michael O’Sullivan said on a March 3 financial-results conference call that the higher-inflation environment could be a risk to the company as lower-income consumers are stressed to pay for more-expensive food, gas and other essentials. But it also could be a “big opportunity” for Burlington, as off-price retail historically has done well in such an economic environment as consumers trade down.

“Usually in times of economic stress when consumers are under pressure, their natural and rational reaction is to focus even more heavily on finding great value,” O’Sullivan said, according to a transcript by Seeking Alpha.

Continue Reading on North Bay Business Journal

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