We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shawn Yohe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shawn , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
The biggest risk that we took as business owners was finding a facility that was both unique and historical to give a perfect canvas to our vision as an artisan shop. Our building is over 150 years old and was used as the Columbia Werks Company (Train Repair) from 1840-1900. After the lifespan of the repair shop the building became the home of 4 different commercial laundry machinery factories from 1903-1974 (Columbia Laundry Machinery Factory, Wilson Laundry Machinery Factory, Superior Laundry and Keystone Laundry). After the final year of production for Keystone the building sat vacant until the 90’s when Lancaster Container Company began using some of their oversized machines in the building until the building became unsafe for use. In 2020 we decided to invest into the building and start creating our canvas for what the building is today. We are considered home to over 85 local vendors who are all artists, crafters, craftsmen, upcycling artists and antique dealers who create amazing pieces for our customers. The risk for us was changing lanes from what we initially got the building for and that was to do auctions. We planned on doing classic car and antique auctions in the building but with COVID in person auctions were slowly depleting and the online side of the market boomed so our building that we put so much time and energy into became an empty structure for the in-person side. So, my wife who is an intermediate schoolteacher in Ephrata, PA suggested we reach out to some crafters to see if they would be interested in retail space for selling their items. After a $100.00 Facebook ad we received over 730 emails from perspective vendors who were all seeking a location to sell their goods. We began to construct stands/booths for all our vendors and limited our genres/creations to 2 of the same to keep variety and here we are today!
Shawn , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Where to start? Personally, I believe that the thing that sets us apart from other businesses around the area is our atmosphere. Our building is a massive 25,000 sq/ft warehouse in Columbia, PA that was once home to the Columbia Werks Company (train repair shop). We have 35-foot ceilings with no vertical beams/supports only the ones that run across the shop from wall to wall. The building was built in 1840 and was home to the Werks Company from its inauguration till 1900 when the building was bought and renovated into a commercial laundry machinery factory. The building has such an amazing industrial feel with oil-stained wood, 4” thick tongue and grooved flooring, original belt drive systems in the rafters and so much more!
As a shop we are focused on giving each of our artists and crafters a space where they feel separate but still a part of the whole. Our spaces are not on top of each other, we are more spread out which allows for each vendor to have their own “space” to create, decorate, promote however they will like. We also limit our genre. We allow no more than 2 vendors to do jewelry, candles, wood working etc. so that there is a vast array of mediums in the building that our shoppers can see a variety of goods. Keystone also puts on multiple events per month to allow for visitors a chance to experience something new every time that they come into the shop. We do our Brew and Shop Events, Wine Tasting (Every 4th Friday), Live Music, Live Demonstrations, Parties, Cookouts, Meet and Greets with Santa and the Grinch, Sidewalk sales and more.
For all our returning shoppers, customers thank you for supporting us through our first year of business. We have grown so much in the first year and we would never have been able to do so without the support of all our customers. But we are just getting started. We are continuing to grow even more each day and this year will be even better.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
This is a two-part answer to be honest! The most rewarding thing for me personally is watching the success of a vendor. I love to be able to help a vendor become successful. If I can help them advertise or push them in a direction that I know that they will succeed is when I’m truly at my happiest. Most of my vendors are hobbyists, this is just a part time gig that they do for extra income and seeing some of them realize that this can become a full-time opportunity is the absolute best! The second part is the reaction of the kids that come into the shop! I love to decorate for the holidays! Halloween is my favorite so of course we do up the entire building in a spooktacular way and my wife is the Christmas Elf. She loves to decorate the building with trees, garland, presents and we even have an Elf Wrapping Station where we built a conveyor system that takes unwrapped presents and turns them into wrapped presents! Both things are what truly makes me proud of what we have built here. We get to help the community by giving them a place to take the whole family while giving our vendors an outlet to sell their creations.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Wow, this is one of those questions that kinda hits home because in the hustle and bustle of life you don’t think of all the things that have happened that put you to where you are now. My business career has been nothing short of pivots, transitions and the idea what is next. I went from someone working with the Philadelphia Phillies and a company called ESF, where I helped run summer baseball academies, their Phillies Phantasy Camps in Florida and working in the stadium, to becoming one of the youngest store managers for a Weis Markets. I then wanted to work for myself after building a business background and bought a bread route that delivered to 10 stores in the Lancaster, PA area and grew that business in 5 years to over 20 stores. After selling the bread route this was the “what is next” part of my life. I have always had a fascination with auctions and auction houses, so we found an old building in Columbia, PA and decided to open an auction house. I worked for multiple auction houses throughout the years and wanted to open one myself but make it more of a fun atmosphere. So, we got this old building did months of remodeling and built one of the coolest auctions in PA, but we ran into a terrible problem and that was COVID. The in-person auction attendance was way down, and the online side was thriving, however the online side also had a stipulation that in case bidders were dealing with hardships because of COVID they would be able to opt out of paying for their items after 90 days. So as our contract stipulated, we would pay our consigners after 2 weeks, and we did, but then we were technically in limbo hoping that the bidders would pay for these items after 90 days or we would be stuck with all the online purchases. And this was the hardest thing we ever had to deal with as a business. Seeing that people would just bid and not have any repercussions if they didn’t pay was where we realized we would have to pivot again and change after a mere 4 months to a different business plan. We did so many renovations to this building and my wife Katie made the statement “Hey let’s see if anyone wants to sell their crafts in our building.” We decided to put out a $100.00 Facebook ad to see how many people would want to be vendors in our building and in the first 72 hours we had over 300 people respond to our ad and now the rest is history. The auction, business wise, was a complete failure but what we had to do was pivot and move onto the next idea. As a business owner, as a person trying to make ends meet you can’t quit or give up. You must adjust, put your head down and figure out the next steps to build personal success. Failures teach you something, they teach you what went wrong and how to adjust to adversity. It shows you what you did right and the ideas on how to build the next idea that much better and I think honestly and truly we have done that! I would have never been able to accomplish any of these things without the help of my amazing wife who has been by my side through all of the ups and downs. I’m truly blessed each day that my support system is so strong and thankful that I get to share each day with someone who is as driven as me! For that I am truly blessed!
Contact Info:
- Website: keystoneartisanwerks.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/KeystoneArtisanWerks