Consumer Stories

Consumer Stories

Local businesses support this weekends’ worldwide fundraiser

Each fall, several local businesses come together to sponsor a very worthy cause, and your business can still register to participate. Core event partners for the annual CSRA Walk for Water, which will be held on Saturday, Oct. 2 starting at 9 AM at SRP Park include Chick-fil-A, Summer House Realty, Be Still Displays, The Family Y and the Augusta GreenJackets. Many local businesses are also sponsoring the event, such as Stone Roastery, Alison South Marketing Group, and Pelican’s Snoballs. The walk raises funds to support Water Mission, a Christian

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Consumer Stories

Chef fuses together food and Augusta/Aiken connection

For the fusion food movement fans out there in Augusta who wonder what happened to their favorite restaurant, The Fuse, Head Chef Najmola bounced back from the expired lease at 10th Street and Broad and took it to Aiken, where it is now Fuse in Aiken. “Y’all come,” he says to any Augustans who miss their place. Fuse was founded in 2015 by sister and brother Karen and Eric Draper, out of the desire to deliver great food combined with craft beer to their guests, explained Chef Najmola, who was

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Consumer Stories

Escape to the great outdoors at new store location

A new, larger store in Martinez offers customers everything they need to enjoy the great outdoors. Escape Outdoors – located at 377 Fury’s Ferry Road on the corner of Baston Road near Poblano’s Mexican Grill – sells a variety of outdoor gear and equipment, such as kayaks, bikes, clothing, and shoes, as well as hats, sunglasses, and knives. The new location, which used to be occupied by a Rite Aid Pharmacy, opened last week. Owner Rafy Bassali had another location at 4275 Washington Road near the Mullins Colony Shopping Center

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Consumer Stories

Downtown art gallery relocates a few doors away

A downtown art gallery is moving to a new, larger location within the same block. The staff of Art on Broad Inc. has begun the process of relocating from 1028 Broad St. to 1016 Broad St. – the former home of Artsy Me.  According to a Facebook post, they’re painting and replacing tile in the new location. The gallery features a variety of creations from local and regional artists, including paintings, pottery, wood pieces, and jewelry. Art on Broad is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and Saturday

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Consumer Stories

Macy’s competes with nearby stores on deep discounts

ABD previously reported that Macy’s in the Augusta Mall was launching a store within a store – a 12,000-square-foot retail space on the lower level called Macy’s Backstage, which is officially open for business. The store, which had its soft opening on Saturday, Sept. 18 followed by a grand opening on Saturday, Sept. 25, features a variety of discount items, such as clothing, shoes, home décor, and toys, as well as designer handbags from Gucci and Louis Vuitton. The concept is designed to appeal to bargain shoppers, according to Abbey

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Consumer Stories

Real Restaurant Review: Manuel’s Bread Café is from another world

Editor’s Note: Wes Hennings never met a meal he walked away from and is an opinionated eater! Each Monday he shares the results of a business lunch he’s had with a colleague as a way to advise our business community on the good, bad and the tasty across the CSRA. He doesn’t let ABD or the restaurant know where he is going and his opinions are his own. He grades the restaurants he visits on a 1-5 scale with “5” being outstanding. This real restaurant review was written in May

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B2B Stories

Communicating On the Job in the CSRA

This Thursday and Friday, Dr. Melissa Furman, MS, DBA Founder of Career Potential, LLC will host a two-day conference dedicated to enhancing, elevating and accelerating career and leadership for women. Last week, nearly 100 women got a sneak peek of just one of the components, courtesy of the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce’s monthly, “Women in Business” series, focusing on communication styles. Nancy Powell, local Augusta Real Estate broker (pictured above in red at front table) took a D-I-S-K assessment questionnaire with other audience members. She learned her personality is

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Consumer Stories

Retailer opens in former CSRA drugstore

Late last week a subsidiary of Dollar General opened “Popshelf”, a female-focused discount retail store that is stocking trendy seasonal and home décor items, health and beauty favorites, home cleaning supplies, household and specialty items, arts and crafts, party planning and more. It is located at 3510 Richland Avenue in Aiken in the former Walgreens building. Popshelf is similar to “Five Below”, a discounter in the Mullins Shopping Center in Evans, where the majority of items sell for less than $5! According to a news release this is the 15th

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Consumer Stories

Wild Wings Update: 3 is better than 2!

ABD’s learned that an unnamed real estate developer in the CSRA has signed on with Wild Wing Café corporate to build three new Wild Wing prototype stores in Richmond and Columbia County, with a 2022 completion date for all three. The developer attended recent franchisee meetings in the Southeast with a small group of CSRA business leaders who came as a show of support. Former Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver, now a business consultant and author was a keynote speaker at one of the Wild Wing Café events. The Scholer family

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Consumer Stories

Real Talk Real Estate: September 24th update!

Happy Fall! What an amazing spring and summer we have survived in real estate. So many buyers and sellers are hoping for a reprieve, so I figure it is time for a quick market update. Currently in the entire CSRA we have 982 residential properties listed for sale and 1,932 homes are pending sale. This means that a buyer has made an offer that the seller accepted, and the buyer and seller are working towards completion of the sale, also known as a closing. The average listed price per square

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