We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alicen Rumsey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alicen, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The original idea for Nola’s Pantry was to open a Specialty Food Market in the historic downtown Rogers, Arkansas with the intention of bringing unique, small batch goods to NWA Arkansas. I personally loved specialty foods and I didn’t mind paying a premium price if I knew it was worth it, but how would I know without tring it first? I decided to add a small commercial kitchen into the space so I could create a menu that highlighted some of the products I was selling. I have a passion for eating a well balanced diet and using ingredients that enhance the flavors of the dish such as fresh herb and spices instead of sugar, fats and white flour. Right away the prepared food in the cafe took off but the retail items did not so over time I decreased my retail areas and adding additional seating. Today, after 3 1/2 years the cafe sales are 90% of our sales. I have continued to leave 10% of the space to the retail because it creates an added ambiance that I wouldn’t have otherwise. We strive to carry local small batch goods so we can support these businesses. Our food is creative, fresh, uses only premium ingredients…nothing fried or greasy which was not available in the downtown area. A great relief to all the bar food! Our serving sizes are flexible so you can order based on how hungry you are (I do not overfeed) and we also have an all day menu serving breakfast and lunch anytime. Our hours are Monday-Saturday 8am-3pm

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Born and raise in Tucson, Arizona I was relocated to NWA Arkansas in 2009. I met my current husband in 2017, married in 2018 and opened Nola’s Pantry in March 2021. We share our love of food, creating new dishes often and/or searching out delicious food in our town or when we’re traveling. My bachelor’s degree is in business with an emphasis in accounting. Both my parents were entrepreneurs in commercial and retail interior design so I naturally worked in these areas when growing up. This skill lended to my ability to remodel the 100+ year old building that Nola’s Pantry is located in. We hear often that the space is like a “warm hug”…very comfortable and welcoming which is what we were going for when designing the space.

My origianl retail space (an area I was comfortable in) quickly turned into a full cafe (not an area I had much experience in). In a way I created a monster!! My small little menu grew and I had to learn very quickly how to run a cafe and provide much more output than the small space was designed to accommodate. My organization skills and ability to put procedures into place allowed us to grow and make it work. Most of our business is during lunch which is a short window of time so you have to be fast and as efficient as possibe. Everyday it feels like a tornado and at 2 oclock the storm has passed and all is quiet again which sends us into recovery mode.

I’m proud that we provide a welcoming space, a friendly staff serving fresh+creative+delicious food at reasonable prices while not overfeeding (appropriate serving sizes). I’m proud that we are feeding our community in a healthy way offering options that lead them towards making positive choices in their daily food choices.

The name Nola is my husband Bill’s mother’s name. We decided to name our business in her honor since she was taken from Bill too soon. We want her legacy to live on through our endeavors.

My design background is apparent is my food. Many of the items are colorful. Ingredients are chosen because of the flavor as well as the color it provides. For instance our Avocado Toast has feta cheese, red pickled onions and black sea salt. All ther colors compliment the green of the avocado.

The retail items are unique. My love for children’s board books, wooden toys, felt purses made in Nepal, beaded coin purses made in Guatemala, and organic health and beauty supplies are examples. I love to retail display work.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

As I mentioned earlier I had to pivot right at the beginning because I had to accommodate what the customers wanted instead of my original idea for Nola’s Pantry (retail to cafe). I believe if we hadn’t the specialty food market wouldn’t have lasted. We’ve grown every year and it took about 3 years to fine tune our business. We’re finally at the point where we are running smoothly with little change. Flexibity and fluidity is the most important aspect to starting a new business I believe. You have an idea, you create it and put it out there in hopes that others will follow your idea. If not, when the majority of the customers lead you in a new direction you have to say YES to it in order to stay in business. Although I have learned that you cannot be all things to all people…my menu became too big and too complicated so recently we’ve pulled some items and worked towards simplifying.

I inherited my parent’s entrepreneural spirit and my varied work history helped me wear all the different hats that a new business owner must wear. My experience in accounting, marketing, retail display, food and customer service helped me navigate through all the challanges that a new business owner experiences. HR would have been good too!!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We were warned that the toughest part of the business would be the staffing. Finding good, dependable staff was a challenge at first. Once we started to have a following it became easier. It seemed like once I had my staff fully trained and operating at a point that I could relax, an employee would leave and I was back to hiring, retraining, etc. I started to worry about when the next employee would leave, gearing myself up for the next setback. In my original idea for Nola’s Pantry I predicted maybe 3 employees but now I run a minimum of 10. Small potatoes for some but to me it was not something I was prepared for. Because of the amount of customers we were serving on a daily basis, I didn’t have a choice but to have a larger staff. I was and am grateful for the business but with it comes stress and constant problem solving. And the learning curve! It was huge because I didn’t know anything about running a cafe. Resilience is in not knowing the answers but knowing how to find them and reaching out to others in your support system. And never giving up!!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nolaspantry.com
• Instagram: nolaspantry_dtr
• Facebook: nolaspantryDTR