CPAs form new South Hill firm

Spokane certified public accountants Anson Avery and Gene Olsen have formed a company named Avery & Olsen CPAs PLLC to provide accounting and tax services in a South Hill office where Avery has worked since 1996.

Olsen became a partner with Avery and a shareholder effective Jan. 1. He had joined the accounting office’s staff last July. 

Avery says six people work in the office, located at 3001 S. Mt. Vernon. In addition to the two owners, the office has two part-time clerical support workers and two accountants hired recently who both work full time. The accountants include Fletcher Avery, Avery’s son who started working there in June, and Teri Hewitt, who joined in November.

Avery, who has been a CPA in Lincoln Heights since March 1981, says the business occupies about 2,500 square feet in an 8,000-square-foot commercial building he owns.  

Avery & Olsen CPAs provides accounting and tax services to families and small business.

—Treva Lind

Eclectic retail shop launched in Hillyard

Spokane resident Richard Burris has opened The Good Stuff, a retail outlet for a variety of vendors to sell their wares, in the Hillyard area. 

Located at 5006 N. Market, The Good Stuff offers products such as artwork, homemade candles, photography, engraved glassware, spices, custom-made wooden boxes, and specialty coffees. It also carries jams and jellies made in a commercial kitchen on-site.

 “What we did is we brought people in that didn’t have the means to have their own place,” Burris says. “It’s a unique little place.”

Burris, who retired from working on railroads in 2006 and moved to Spokane from the West Side, says he purchased the 2,000-square-foot, previously vacant building on Market from Ken Millette. The store occupies about 1,100 square feet of space at the street level, and Burris lives in a 900-square-foot apartment above it.

Burris says the store gets a percentage of each sale, and he doesn’t charge other fees to vendors. The percentage varies depending on the product, he says. 

“We get a split; we talk it over with each one of them,” he says. “Some sell more rapidly than others. Artwork sells much slower than cupcakes.”

Burris says he’s applied for a liquor license and refinished an old barber shop bar, which he installed at the back of the store to offer wine and beer tastings. He says he plans to use the shop’s kitchen to make extracts, such as raspberry and blueberry, to be made into custom-brewed ales. 

“We’ll have growlers for sale and tastings,” he says.

 

—Katie Ross

Paint and sip studio planned downtown

Tipsy Creations LLC, a Spokane-based franchisee of Pinot’s Palette, plans in March to open a downtown art studio to offer classes in which customers follow step-by-step instruction to paint while sipping a favorite beer or wine beverage.

Franchisee owner Jackie Casey says the business is leasing 1,250 square feet of floor space at 32 W. Second, next door to the Spokane Public Market. The outlet will be Tipsy Creations’ first and is expected to be the first outlet in Washington state for Pinot’s Palette, which is based in Houston and now has more than 60 franchise paint-and-sip studios nationwide.

Casey says she is hiring six part-time employees who are artists here as instructors. 

 She says the Spokane outlet will offer two-hour classes on weekdays for $35 each, and three-hour classes on weekends for $45. The price for a class includes all the painting materials and instruction, but not the beverages, which customers can purchase separately from a small bar in the studio.

“Customers follow an instructor’s lead as everyone in the class does the same painting,” Casey says. “It’s designed for people who have never painted before. They can take home their very own masterpiece.”

Some classes will replicate the work of famous painters such as Van Gogh and Monet, while others are for art pieces provided by the Pinot’s Palette corporate office. However, Casey says she will include classes to paint artwork produced by Spokane-area artists.

Casey grew up in Montana and then moved to Tulsa, Okla., where she first attended a Pinot’s Palette class with friends and learned about the franchise. Her parents had retired to Coeur d’Alene, and when she moved to Spokane in August, Casey says she decided to open a studio here.

 

—Treva Lind

 

Brewpub opens with hunting-dog theme

Jeff Bendio, owner of JB Engineering Inc., of Spokane Valley, says he and his wife, Anita, have opened a brewpub named English Setter Brewing Co. in a leased 3,600-square-foot space at 15310 E. Marietta, near the Spokane Business & Industrial Park.

The upland hunting dog-themed establishment has seating for 75 people and offers pub foods, such as flatbread pizzas, a Gorgonzola burger, Andouille sausage, and hot pretzels, to go with the beers it makes, Bendio says.

English Setter Brewing makes a variety of beers with dog-related names, such as an On Point Ale, Fetching Blonde, Wiggly Butt IPA, Wild Flush IPA, Chucker Nose Amber, and a Llewellin Porter, he says. It has set up a three-barrel brewing system, a one-barrel system, and a five-gallon pilot system in the space on Marietta, Bendio says, adding, “Everything we brew is sold here.”

The space that the business occupies formerly was home to a sandwich shop, and it needed minimal remodeling to turn it into a brewpub, other than adding a cold room, he says. For now, the brewpub is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 3 to 9 p.m., but those hours might be expanded later, he says.

Bendio is a mechanical engineer who has worked for several companies here and founded JB Engineering about 28 years ago. About half of the engineering work he does currently involves medical equipment and handheld devices, he says.

Bendio says he intends to split his time between his engineering business and English Setter Brewing. Three friends of the Bendios also are working part time at the brewpub, he says, adding that he expects to add perhaps two more part-time employees.  

—Kim Crompton 

Restaurateur opens Chicago Beef here

Chicago Beef Co., a restaurant that’s carrying Vienna Beef brand products, has opened at 9222 N. Newport Highway, on Spokane’s North Side. 

The restaurant, owned by Craig Bagdon, joins Rathdrum restaurant Joey T’s Taste of Chicago as the only sellers of authentic Vienna Beef products in the Inland Northwest, Bagdon says. 

Bagdon says Chicago Beef Co. is located in the same space as a Mr. Wok restaurant, which already was operating there and is owned separately. 

“We’re a dual-concept restaurant,” he says. 

The restaurants occupy about 2,000 square feet of floor space, he says. 

Bagdon says he spent the last five years in Chicago, but is a Spokane native. 

“I absolutely fell in love with the food, and when I moved back to Spokane, I couldn’t find it anywhere,” he says. “I decided this would be a good time to bring it back to Spokane.”

Bagdon says he returned to Chicago briefly to attend Vienna Beef’s “Hot Dog University” before opening his business. 

Bagdon says he is leasing the restaurant space from Heritage Properties Inc. Bagdon did some remodeling to his portion of the space, he says, including updating some equipment, such as steam and prep tables. 

The restaurant currently has three employees, Bagdon says. 

Vienna Beef was founded in Chicago in 1893 by Austrian-Hungarian immigrants Emil Reichel and Sam Ladany. Vienna Beef now also includes brands for chili, pickles, sausages, bistro soups, and Halal products. 

 

—Katie Ross