We were lucky to catch up with Tonya Rintye recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tonya, 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.

My husband, Nick, and I own The Hipster Hound. The way we started this business is by making dog treats and selling at our local markets. By doing this, we really got to know several local artisans. In January of 2020, we were walking down Broughton Street commenting what a shame that most of the stores are chain stores and not a lot of local stores or locally made items for our tourists visiting our beautiful series. This gave us the idea for Locally Made Savannah. We already had the connections with local artisans so the next step was to find a spot on Broughton Street and gathering so many different and wonderful local goods so we opened in March of 2022.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Locally Made Savannah is a retail store representing over 200 local artisans from skincare, apparel, kids items, stationary, art, candles and so much more…all made from Savannah LowCountry artisans! It also offers an old fashioned milkshake and soda bar for crazy shakes, funky floats and fun soda combinations. We are so proud to literally be showing what Savannah is made of to the many tourists who visit our beautiful city. Most of these artisans would have never had the chance to sell on Broughton Street and have such a stage to get their work in front of so many people so we’re most proud that we could provide this to other local businesses and help our community.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We worked with the UGA Savannah Business Development Center on our idea. They helped us with a business plan, marketing plan, etc. We then procured a loan with our bank that we use for our other business, The Hipster Hound.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Our clientele is mainly tourists who wonder in from the streets. We are very active on social media sites that are geared toward people visiting Savannah as well as active in the Chamber of Commerce/Visit Savannah platform. We started a unique series called Roll For Milkshake on TikTok and now have over close to 50,000 followers and that platform has brought in many tourists and locals to our milkshake bar. Many of the videos have gone viral and this out of the box idea has really elevated our social media performance.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.locallymadesavannah.com
• Instagram: locally_made_savannah
• Facebook: Locally Made Savannah
• Other: TikTok: Locally Made Savannah