By John Ostapowicz
NILES, Ohio – When a small-business owner sets out to build an establishment from the ground up, getting started can prove a challenge. When mixing family ties with ambition, the challenge became an opportunity for a new boutique within the Mahoning Valley.
Blair & Bloom opened at Eastwood Mall in Niles on July 31 near its Center Court area. Since then, owner Alyssa Langenheim, alongside her mother and co-owner Cheryl Achey, have seen positive responses from the community.
Almost two months later, Langenheim began the process of expanding the boutiques operations with the launching of an online shop Sept. 1 that includes shipping and in-store pickup options.
For the online option, Langenheim says that’s originally how Blair & Bloom was going to operate, as an online exclusive, before moving to a brick-and-mortar location.
“As for the selection and when the storefront came into play, I knew that I still wanted to entertain doing the online side of things,” Langenheim says. “Getting [the online shop] up and going was my main priority.”
Langenheim doesn’t run the business alone. Achey says she wanted to help make her daughter’s dream of opening a physical storefront a reality. The pair began the search for vacant locations and eventually landed on the Eastwood Mall as the right fit. Achey also says the Cafaro Company’s support of Blair & Bloom helped drive the decision to call the Eastwood Mall its home.
“We looked at a few spots in other areas, and then [Langenheim] said that she had an interview with the Eastwood Mall, and I went, ‘Alyssa, are you crazy?’ And she goes, ‘No, we’re going to meet with them,’ and we did, and the [Cafaros] totally supported us… they knew our dream and it just happened,” Achey recalls.
With more than 20 years of retail experience, Langenheim dreamed of owning her own boutique. From a young age, she enjoyed creating displays and bringing her own visions to life. Achey adds over 30 years of experience, with the mother-daughter duo adding their own spin on a modern boutique.
“I’ve always dreamed of having my own boutique, doing something in the retail fashion industry… to be able to bring this to the Eastwood Mall, still to this day, it hasn’t even fully hit me. I’m just super excited to be able to bring something like this to the community,” Langenheim says.
When designing the overall layout for Blair & Bloom, Langenheim wanted to create an atmosphere that would be welcoming and catch the attention of passersby at the Eastwood Mall. The cozy and warm ambiance was strategically thought out by Langenheim. From how items are placed and hung to how products are displayed, she says each element plays an important role in attracting customers to certain merchandise.
“We get a lot of people that come in and they’re like, ‘We love this in here. It’s so warm and cozy,’ and that’s what we really wanted to go for as far as putting a boutique together,” Langenheim says.
The main reason for the creation of the business was not only to achieve Langenheim’s dream, but to deliver a need in the Mahoning Valley – a locally owned and sourced boutique. Since the location is alongside larger retail stores, Blair & Bloom offers customers an opportunity to support a locally owned business within a larger shopping destination.
Relationships with clientele also play a big role in what Blair & Bloom does. Langenheim says those lasting relationships that she built throughout her career followed her from previous retail experiences.
“Doing retail, I’ve had a lot of people tell me, ‘you need to do this for yourself,’ and to be able to welcome them into my very own store it still is just like the excitement. The support that I’ve had from everybody in the community – it’s truly been awesome,” Langenheim says.
Throughout the entirety of the opening process, both Langenheim and Achey worked together to hang up clothes, stock shelves, paint walls and shop for merchandise. Langenheim adds that having her mom to help is a memory that she will never forget.
“To even have that as a memory that I can carry with me for the rest of my life is something that I won’t forget,” she explains.
For Achey, watching her daughter achieve her dream is a proud moment. The process itself has helped strengthen the bond between the two and created memories that Achey will cherish forever.
“It’s actually the bonding that I have with my daughter because those are moments that you’ll never be able to recreate,” Achey says. “I could cry because I just lost my husband in February and you don’t realize how life is and how short it can be. That’s why I say if you have a dream, follow your dream – make those treasurable moments – and that’s what Alyssa and I do everyday.”
Community support is a large part of what helps drive Blair & Bloom and Langenheim to continue what she does. When the store first opened, she was unsure of what to expect, but the familiar faces who came out to support her gave her a sense of reassurance as a small-business owner.
“It didn’t really hit me until the grand opening day when you would see all those familiar faces standing in this huge line that we had. I wasn’t even thinking we would have a line,” Langenheim explains.
Seeing the support from the Valley, Langenheim made giving back to the community a priority. Although Blair & Bloom had only been open about a month, the boutique began supporting local causes by participating in fundraisers and donating to local foundations.
As the business continues to grow, Langenheim hopes that Blair & Bloom will be able to do more within the community.
“We’re in the beginning stages of being able to do what we really want to do. Anything that we can do to help the community — I’m always open. I love doing things like that,” Langenheim says. “It’s those things that, being a small business owner, it’s nice to have that option to be able to help.”
Although opening a business for the first time can be challenging, Langenheim believes the successes outweighed the difficulties, as working with her mother has allowed the two to grow while navigating the learning curve as business owners together, rather than experiencing it alone.
“It’s definitely been a learning curve. It’s a lot of things that, not only myself, but I’ve been learning with my mom – side-by-side, how to piece this together to make it something that the community is really going to like,” Langenheim says.
Blair & Bloom also utilizes social media to showcase new products and market the business. Langenheim says social media is one of the boutique’s biggest platforms for engaging with the public through TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
With the first day of fall approaching and winter not far behind, Langenheim has already begun to prepare Blair & Bloom for the changing seasons. New merchandise will be arriving in the boutique, with jewelry and additional accessories being added to the store.
“[There’s] so many cute things that are going to be coming in over the next couple of weeks. We’re really going to try to make sure all those things are going to be online as well. So, if you’re not able to get here, or if you want to order it and pick it up in-store, we’ll have it ready,” Langenheim says.
For more information about Blair & Bloom, including store hours and available merchandise, visit shopblairandbloom.com.
Pictured at top: Alyssa Langenheim, owner of Blair & Bloom, and her mother and co-owner Cheryl Achey stand inside the boutique at Eastwood Mall.
