(upbeat music) - Hey out there, Akronites.

Welcome once again, to "Around Akron with BlueGreen," and you guessed it.

We have an amazing show ahead of us today.

I learn all about candles and candle making with Black Culture Candles.

I head up the Peninsula to the Purplebrown Farm Store, a place that spotlights all local products and produce.

I meet up with some past owners and employees to discuss memories of Bob's Hamburg.

Now to kick this show off today, I'm gonna head down to Wadsworth and learn all about gaming with SydeQuest Games.

Let's go see what SydeQuest Games is all about.

(gentle music) - [John] The whole reason that we're SydeQuest Games is because this is the side of my wife's store.

And you know, a side quest in any gaming aspect, whether it's online gaming, or any of the console gaming, or even in board games, it's all side quest, you know, you have role playing games, you side quest missions and things.

So that's kind of, do something like where it adds that in.

This is a side of her store, we're SydeQuest games.

The spelling was because believe it or not, there's people that had the domains for side quest games.

So I'm like, well, what can I do now?

Okay.

I'll go with an old English type spelling go, S-Y-D-E. And it's funny 'cause now if you start with S-Y-D-E you get a lot of English, places in England, names and stuff, like places and stuff, especially if I'm using a map finder.

So, S-Y-D-E and then boom it goes straight to England, except for when I start typing quest and then it actually comes back to Wadsworth, Ohio.

So yeah.

So the Y is just to differentiate myself from the other ones.

(gentle music) So her business is wholly separate.

She's had Opal Dragonfly Boutique for, this is her fourth year.

She was at 104 High Street before.

And when this became available, she knew how much more space it was.

And she like, she didn't know what she was gonna do with the side.

She didn't know if she wanted to hold extra classes and stuff like that, but she didn't, she really wouldn't have been able to use all the space up.

When she realized that, then she asked me if I wanted to have a store here.

My dream has always been to have a comic books shop or a game shop because of where I grew up.

A lot of people know John from Kenmore comics.

And that was like, that was my dream.

I'm like, this is what I would love to do.

So anyway, she asked if I wanted to have a store and I was able to actually, you know, do it.

And now she has all sorts of different stuff because she has the room for it.

She has extra things like wind chime stuff, like locally made items like the wind chimes.

She has locally made earrings and head pieces and stuff that are made here in Wadsworth.

(mystical music) So we consider this kind of like a third place, you know, it's safe place, a place where you can go and be yourself, be kind of nerdy.

So that's one of the main stays of everything that we try to do here.

You know, we sell board games, we sell collectible card games, Pokemon, Magic, and Flesh and Blood are the three main ones that we sell.

We sell non collectable card games, you know, Marvel Champions and some of those card games, but we sell role playing games and miniatures.

But the main thing we try to do is try to get the community and other people to come in and play games.

That's the whole thing I wanna do.

I wanna foster a area where people are safe to be whoever they wanna be and be able to have fun playing games that aren't necessarily electronics.

There's some electronic aspects in some of the games that are here, but that's why I really will probably never do anything with electronic games.

A lot of my type of stores, some of them do that and they do well in it.

I just don't think that's what I want.

So I probably will never do that.

I think I have enough with the board games and the card games and the miniature stuff that's going on, that brings enough people in and they can have fun.

We have a large group of ages.

You know, we play, we do D&D in the back room here, along with other role playing games.

And we have people as young as 10 and people as old as 67 that play and do things here.

So it's, you know, everywhere in between.

And we just absolutely love it.

Some of the people that play D&D, we started up a new night.

I'm looking at possibly starting up a another night.

I don't do any of the DMing currently, but one guy is doing it and we're gonna probably bring on another DM because we have so many people that want to...

I guess there's not really a lot of places that probably have the type of environment really, to allow that thing to happen and happen all the time regularly.

People's houses, you know, it would be something, but you gotta know those people.

And someplace like this allows strangers to meet and they come and play together.

It's really fun to see a lot of people having fun in your establishment and asking questions and playing games and that to me is probably the best thing of all of this.

Just everybody having fun.

We a had Pokemon tournament.

It wasn't really tournament, but it was like a learn to play event and somebody wins and everything.

And, you know, I seen the kids play, adults play in it even.

It is just something that really, you know, sings to me.

It really allows me to feel good about what I've done here so far.

And I wanna expand that eventually.

Hopefully we'll be able to do that.

(mystical music) - Next up, I'm gonna meet up with Black Culture Candles and learn all about how as scent can take you to a whole new place in time.

Let's go see what Black Culture Candles is all about.

(gentle music) - My favorite scent, grandma's garden.

This is the first scent I developed.

And I developed this scent because it reminded me of my grandmother.

And I remember as a little girl going to my grandmother's house, especially in the summertime and looking for her and she was never in the house.

She was always in her garden.

And my grandmother passed in 2007.

She was 101 years old, but I still miss her.

So I wanted to capture the experience of her hands in the soil tending to her vegetables and her fruits and watching her can those vegetables and distribute them to her family.

So this is my favorite because it means the most to me.

(mellow music) I started the business.

It came from a conversation I was having with my daughter, and this was in the thick of the George Floyd movement, the Black Lives movement.

And we were talking about how there was just so much Black trauma on TV, in the news, but it never talks about the joy of the Black culture.

My daughter has a master's in psychology and she was coming from coming from a clinical perspective, and I'm coming at it from a creative perspective.

And we were talking about just, what can we do to just infuse some joy and just make people aware that we have more in common than we have differences.

And even with my candles, everyone can relate to the experience of each candle.

And so we were talking about how scent activates memory.

And so then we just started talking and my daughter started talking about, you know, how she remembers going to my grandmother's house and sitting on her front porch and she had a grape arbor, and we would be picking grapes and sitting, you know, and we would go, and she's snapping peas she picked in her garden.

And she started talking about what that smelled like to her and I talked about my grandmother being in the garden, what that smelled like to me.

And she said, well, mom, why don't you make a candle?

You know, so that's why I started the grandma's garden.

I said, well let me, this is a tribute to big mama, (Lori laughing) you know, and when I smelled it, it took me right back, you know, to her garden, to seeing her, you know, with her hands in the soil, talking about, you know, what have you been up to, how are the kids, while she's, you know, and to help me pull these weeds, don't just stand there, pull these weeds.

(Lori laughing) It took me right back there.

I originally started the business with my daughter, but she lives and works in Cincinnati.

So it's hard to be remote.

(Lori laughing) So now I'm just, I'm doing it alone.

So I wanted to just continue with the candle making and just take experiences that mean a lot to not just my culture, but to everyone and just remind people that we're just, the Black culture, isn't just trauma fueled.

We have a lot of joyful moments that aren't any different from anyone else's.

So that is how the business came to be.

(light jazz music) These are matte glass, they're recyclable, and they don't come this way.

I engrave them.

(Lori laughing) And I do this because, you know, you light a candle because you wanna experience the light and the flickering of the flame.

I engraved it so as the candle, the wax burns down, you can still see the flame through the glass.

And so when I add some Mica in the wax, so as it's burning, you still get you, if you look at it, you'll get the little golden flecks in the wax.

And the wooden wick is the crackling, like a little fireplace.

So if it's quiet, you'll hear the little crackling.

And that's just a more for relaxation.

I develop each one of the fragrances, you know, I don't just pour it in a jar.

I mean, I mix, you know, 'cause I'm trying to, when I put my candles together, I'm trying to figure out, what does this experience smell like?

What does joy smell like?

What does grandma's garden smell like?

What does love smell like?

You know, and that's how I come up with my fragrances.

'Cause I want it to really resonate with the experience.

(light jazz music) Making candles is relaxing for me, but I have to be really careful with the type of wax and wicks because I do have asthma.

So I found, you know, the Coco apricot and the wooden wicks are the ones that don't irritate my asthma.

They don't activate my asthma.

But I knit, I sew, I make candles.

(Lori laughing) So I create a lot.

I'm working on an idea and I have eight tester candles, (Lori laughing) you know, that I'm testing just with different, you know, just fragrance, fragrance percentages, waxes, wicks.

So I have eight lined up just testing to see what is the right combination.

(light jazz music) Always look at the ingredient list on the candle.

They have to put it out there.

So look on the back of your candle and see what the ingredient- Now my candles, you'll just have a few ingredients, coconut, apricot wax and your fragrance oil, that's it.

(light jazz music) - Next up, we're gonna head down to Peninsula to the Purplebrown Farm Store.

Now this place sells only locally produced and locally grown products.

Let's go see what Purplebrown Farm Store is all about.

(country guitar music) - We started a small permaculture farm, 10 acres, in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, as part of the countryside initiative program in 2016.

And I can say that was my first immersion into full-time farming and gardening and growing.

And I have always been an avid local food shopper and a label reader.

I've always sought out farmer's markets everywhere I live and made that connection to food and always just growing a little something where I've been.

And since we started the farm and been living in Northeast Ohio, again, really realized that this is lacking and that gave me the motivation to start a farm store in a way where I always wanted to shop wherever I lived.

And so now that was really our first full-time immersion into doing it ourselves and creating something that we've always sought for ourselves.

(country guitar music) The name does stand out and I think that's kind of part of the fun.

My husband, Jimmy came up with the name.

It's a little bit cheesy I suppose, but they were our wedding colors, so they have meaning for us in that way.

And on our farm, it faces westward.

We're sitting on a Ridge on a slope and we have beautiful sunsets on the farm and the colors purple and brown are really reminiscent of the sunset at the horizon line.

(cheery music) It's really just a brick and mortar farmer's market in effect where we only source local, fresh foods, from local farmers to provide all year round.

So our farm really led us to the store.

We in 2020, like everybody else, you know, we had to scramble and stay agile and get creative.

And because our farm is just a couple miles from here in Boston Heights, it's fairly close to market.

And so we kind of asked some of our farmer friends, would you like to sell some of your products in the farm stand with us, in the barn on the farm.

And one thing led to another and from week to week, customers kept showing up and we added more products.

And by the end of 2020, we had over 12 farmers and, you know, hundreds of customers that had come from the come through the store and we were scratching our head last winter thinking, well, we can't keep doing this in the barn anymore.

We're a working farm where we raise pigs here and it's just not set up for this activity.

And in last winter we found out that this space was for rent.

And as soon as we walked in, it just really clicked.

The historic use of this is as a train depot.

So it really has that same aesthetic as a barn.

It has that old traditional charm to it.

But it fits 45 Northeast Ohio producers.

And it makes us a lot more accessible.

There's a parking lot.

There's tourists and visitors being in really in the heart of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, in this historic village of Peninsula.

It's really fitting.

It's really fitting to showcase, you know, historically the Northeast Ohio region is agriculturally very productive, and it's really nice to showcase that local agriculture right in the heart of the valley.

(cheery music) The core of the store is really to integrate local producers and the local food economy as the highlight.

How to put local farmers in front of a larger audience.

In a typical grocery store, you would see maybe, you know, the local producers as an end cap or as a corner, where are here, they are the center of the store.

They are the only thing presented.

And what we're able to accomplish with that is to really support and validate the local food economy as a path forward for all of us to benefit from.

Farmers wear a lot of hats.

In my handful of years of farming, what I learned is that we really expect a lot from our local food producers.

They have to grow the food and do the weeding and the planting, but they also have to be soil scientists.

They also have to do all of the marketing and all of the sales and all of the distribution of their food and the storage of that food.

The label creation, the communications.

It really adds up.

We're really expecting a lot from our small local farmers.

And at the same time, we have so much benefits from having small local farms integrated into our communities.

It is much more pleasant way to take a scenic drive, to pass small, beautiful, rural farms, rather than industrial parkways.

You know, that might be a personal preference, but at the end of the day, they really beautify our communities.

And we have to validate the economy in that way also to support local production and to trust that it's really gonna play out and benefit us all.

(cheery music) We really do expect the consumer to also show up and to also demonstrate a commitment to really spend the extra little bit of time and effort and maybe money, to show their contribution to that local economy as well, to support the producers.

You know, that message is essential because that's how the economy of the future is going to be built and that is how our community can really be secure to know that we will have abundance, regardless of what happens around the world.

And that's what the store is all about.

It's just playing a little part and doing what we can to make that future come to fruition.

(cheery music) - Now to wrap this show up today, I'm gonna head up to Bob's Hamburg.

Did you know they've been around for over 90 years now?

So I meet with some of the past employees and managers to learn their journey and their desire to keep the memory and legacy of Bob's Hamburg alive.

Let's go see what Bob's Hamburg is all about.

(mellow music) - [Rita] Fresh cut fries, homemade onion rings, you can't beat it.

You can't beat it.

(mellow music) - [Jan] When Bob started it, he only had it for a couple years and it was actually next door.

- [Rita] Yeah.

- [Jan] And they moved the trolley car, that this is all built over.

- The wheels are still under it.

I've been down there with them.

(Rita laughing) - The trolley moved over here because the rent was too high for Walt.

So he moved it over here and then bumped out the front and bumped out the back and, you know, did all the other stuff, put The Bahama room on and stuff like that.

So originally it was just like- - It was back here.

- Right, yeah.

Right about there.

And then, you know, the little bit of the kitchen and stuff like that, because that's how it was.

And it was- - [Rita] Originally it was a lot smaller.

- [Jan] Yeah, it was just a counter.

It didn't have any seats or anything like that.

And then he bumped it out and stuff and made it enough to where there was enough kitchen to be able to do stuff.

(cheery music) - Well, I can't remember the first time, but I remember the first time I started working here was the day that Walt, the previous owner had passed in here, and they wanted know if I could do dishes.

And so I came to do dishes and I stayed for the next 31 years.

Well, I just didn't think I would like it as well as I did.

I just loved the people.

My job to get 'em out to work in the morning.

Especially the morning people that came in, the same people every day and felt like I should get 'em out in a good mood, 'cause most of 'em hated their job.

And I just felt very fortunate to love my job.

That's why I stayed after I sold it because I didn't want things to change and I wanted to keep going 'cause I think it's not very many places.

I always said it's a real compliment to come to Bob's because we're not near anything, not near mall, not near, you know, just here.

So when you come to Bob's, you're coming to Bob's for Bob's.

(cheery music) - Me and my husband actually worked here together.

We kept it open from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

That's so people that got off work could come that hadn't had a chance to eat here.

So it really picked up the business well.

After that, a couple years later, I got hired by Charlie and Allie at Stray Dog Cafe.

So lucky enough when they bought that, they brought me here to manage this restaurant.

So that was a great thing.

And ever since then, it's been going really well.

They're great people to work for.

- I'd like to see it stay the way it is.

Absolutely not change a thing.

Leave it the way it is.

It it's a good old, just a good place to sit down and eat and you feel at home here.

That's why I think a lot of people come back.

The older people don't like change, at all.

So yeah, I'd like to see it stay the way it is.

- Man, one thing about Bob's, everybody knows about it.

I still to this day, at least three to five times a day, I get asked about Bob's.

I was just in the gym the other day.

This guy is 90 years old.

He came up to me and he said that Bob's was his first job.

You can't get any cooler than that.

(upbeat music) - It could be a little, it was a little intense when you had big, big orders and you could only put so much food on that grill.

That could be a little, it could have been a little hectic at times, but we made it, we got through it.

Yeah and it was just fun just working out there on the grill, people watching you cook or you know, and you can still turn around and talk with your customers for a minute, you know, and go back to your cooking.

(burgers sizzling) - Now a lot of people tell a story that's been here since the beginning, but a guy came in and he said in 1961, I installed that grill.

So it's like, I believe that.

I think that's been here since 1961.

But a lot of people think it's been here from '31.

That grill is amazing and I hope they never get rid of it.

It's seasoned.

If you change that, the burgs will not taste the same.

That's a seasoned grill.

And even people come in comment, oh my God, that's what makes those burgs, you know.

They're trying to spruce it up a little but not change.

(upbeat music) - And so our interest in Bob's, other people have tried to build a Bob's empire and our interest is preservation of the history of Bob's and keeping it going forever.

And so whether that means it grows and expands.

That might happen naturally, but it's not our target.

Our target really is keeping it the way it is.

Keeping people employed, keeping the tradition alive.

(upbeat music) I think where my vision is, that Bob's can stay Bob's, even if it gets bigger, it can stay the same look and feel that it always has.

They've obviously been doing something right.

They've been doing it for a long time there.

We're not trying to change it.

(upbeat music) - Thank you once again, for watching this episode of "Around Akron with Blue Green."

Now, if you have any questions, comments, you just wanna drop me an email, you can reach me www.AroundAkronWithBlueGreen.com or you can catch me at social media.

Thank you and have an amazing day.

(upbeat music)