Three owners share their tips

For many business owners, the pandemic was a time of uncertainty. But for Katherine Lewin, it was a time of inspiration, new beginnings and “lightning bolt” ideas. People were cooking and baking more than ever before, and Lewin knew that once quarantine restrictions lifted there was going to be a rush to dine again with family and friends. “It struck me that dinner parties were going to be something that people felt really excited about once it was going to be safe enough to gather at home,” she says.

Lewin followed this hunch and when a storefront in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, caught her eye, she left her day job as an editor to open Big Night, a dinner party essentials boutique. Opening a brick-and-mortar store in the middle of the pandemic within two months of signing a lease was a whirlwind on its own—yet less than two years later, she opened a second location in New York City’s West Village neighborhood. She never imagined either would happen so quickly, but a combination of opportunity and momentum propelled her, and now she’s planning further expansion for the brand.

For many business owners, expansion is top of mind yet carries a lot of uncertainty. But there are ways to do it successfully. We talked to three business owners who shared tips for maintaining quality while expanding.

1. Know Your Neighborhood

When it comes to brick-and-mortar businesses, it’s not just about the physical location. How that spot serves the area’s customers and communities plays a major role, too.

For Lewin, it was essential to each store’s success to understand the consumer habits between Greenpoint and the West Village. Greenpoint’s customer base, she’s learned, is into the latest and greatest in food and cooking, while the West Village’s customers are skewed toward home design and gifting. 

“For these two locations, and as many more as I can open, I really want the product assortment and the vibe to reflect the neighborhood, the space and the customers that come in,” Lewin says. While both locations overlap in what they sell, Lewin says her stores are sisters, not twins.

2. For Accepting Payments, Consider Your Customer Base

Several business owners shared that expansion—whether by adding an additional location or growing into ecommerce and online retail—brings unique considerations for how to best accept payments, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Lewin, for example, has a clear mission to make sure everyone who walks in feels included and like they have options – from products to how they want to pay. While the vast majority of customers pay with a credit card, “some people just really prefer cash—or that’s what works for them—so I would hate to turn people away or make them feel excluded by not accepting it,” she says.

For some business owners, like Grant Reynolds of Parcelle Wine Shop, eliminating cash helps him feel like he’s keeping his workers and wine bars safe. “There’s a real safety concern with a lot of cash,” he says, adding that the evening operating hours of his bars add to the risk. Parcelle also operates an online business, where electronic payments are the norm, so Parcelle decided as a business to be entirely cashless.   

3. Centralize Your Operations (As Much As You Can)

Small business owners consistently say that taking a long, hard look at their back-of-house systems and operations to see what can be streamlined is an important step to take before expanding. Reynolds, for example, has the same team overseeing Parcelle’s e-commerce business, operations and finance. “There’s some operational oversight, but there’s really three people who work with me directly, so there’s efficiency there,” he says.

For Apotheke Mixology, which has two locations in New York City and one in Los Angeles, CEO Andrew Hood says consolidating systems was key to supporting expansion. With so many networks getting adopted and multiple systems for every aspect of the restaurant business—from reservations to payments—Hood says there wouldn’t be enough bandwidth to be able to handle different systems. While he continues to look for additional ways to consolidate, he started with his financial suite, one where he could keep payments, point-of-sale and inventory needs centralized. “I would never even consider [opening additional locations] if we couldn’t live with all of our financial needs on one platform,” he says.  

4. Understand the E-Commerce Opportunity

Online sales continue to grow year over year, and while businesses are expanding into e-commerce now more than ever, tackling the online space brings its own considerations.

For Lewin, e-commerce wasn’t something she was ready to launch in the early days of Big Night. She knew, though, that it was going to be an important aspect of her business down the line, so she invested in an integrated POS system off the bat. “It's great that it's one system for everything and can track the customer journey along the whole system,” she says.

She says she uses it to help plan future buys, look at customer trends and cart behavior, as well as keep track of open tabs and order fulfilment, all of which have aided in Big Night’s growth. Which begs the question: What’s next for Big Night?

More expansion, Lewin says. “More locations and hopefully more of our own Big Night product line,” as well as assembling specialized teams for ecommerce and store management to support that growth.