Indoor-gardening supply retailer opens store in Deer Park
The Grow Center, which sells indoor-gardening supplies and hydroponics equipment at 2808 E. Sprague, in Spokane, has opened a second location, at 615 S. Fir in Deer Park.

"Indoor gardening has been a passion of mine since I was a kid," says co-owner Chris Reno. Through The Grow Center, he says, he can teach people to use space in their homes to produce all the vegetables they need.

Reno says longtime Spokane auto dealer Rick Harter is his partner in the business. Harter operates Affordable Motors here and previously owned Horizon Auto Sales at the 1,400-square-foot space on East Sprague where the first Grow Center is located. Harter provided the financial backing for The Grow Center, which opened last summer.

Reno is managing the East Sprague store and has hired a manager for the 1,000-square-foot Deer Park location. The business has no other employees.

Duprees buy out restaurant partner
Stir Restaurant & Lounge owners Ken and Marjorie Dupree have bought out their partner, Kirsten Nell, a real estate agent with Windermere North Spokane LLC, for an undisclosed amount, Ken Dupree says.

The Duprees and Nell opened Stir in a 3,000-square-foot leased space at 7115 N. Division in 2007. The restaurant serves a range of dishes, including steak, salmon, and burgers. The lounge offers a wide selection of appetizers and martinis, and the establishment has music and dancing on Friday and Saturday nights, Dupree says.

He says Stir has brought back its original chef, David Lee, and plans to upgrade its menu. It also plans to stay open later.

The Duprees previously owned the Rendezvous event center at the Riverwalk Plaza, 1002 E. Trent, just east of Gonzaga University, and Fat Tuesday's concert hall at the Riverwalk, and later at 109 W. Pacific downtown.

Errand, hospitality service launches from mobile office
Carolyn Kloetsch has started Concierge Quick, an errand-and-hospitality service for the Spokane area.

Kloetsch says she operates the business from her vehicle. Concierge Quick lists 70 different available services, ranging from running errands at $15 per hour to organizing children's birthday parties that start at $125.

In talking with other parents, Kloetsch says she heard repeated comments such as, "I wish I had somebody to run my dog to the vet so I didn't have to leave work." The idea for Concierge Quick was born out of that expressed need, she says.

Kloetsch says she has extensive volunteer experience organizing auctions, birthday parties, and other events and services for large groups.

"I'm kind of service-oriented. It's something I enjoy," she says.

Since opening her business in October, she has run errands, performed in-home elderly care, transported children to appointments, and taken on house-sitting jobs. She says she is licensed and insured and provides references to prospective clients.

For now, Concierge Quick has an on-call assistant to help out when there are schedule conflicts. Kloetsch says her short-term goal is to add another part-time employee.

Electronic cigarette retailer opens store in Airway Heights


Smart Smoke Inc., headquartered in downtown Spokane, has opened a new location, at 12924 W. Highway 2, in Airway Heights, after closing its outlet in the commissary at Fairchild Air Force Base, says Ronell Routon, Smart Smoke's director of sales and marketing.

The electronic cigarette distributor opened for business here two years ago. It has seven locations, 25 employees, and annual revenues of more than $2 million, Routon says.

Joshua Jamerson, of Medical Lake, started the company after he discovered electronic cigarettes and gave up tobacco products. A facility in Asia manufactures Smart Smoke's products to the company's specifications, Routon says.

Smart Smoke plans to open another location in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area, then look elsewhere to open stores.

"We're definitely looking at expanding," Routon says. "We have new products coming soon which will allow us to grow exponentially in the next year."

Motorcycle dealership in Post Falls closes
Road House Cycles, a once-popular cruiser motorcycle dealership located along Interstate 90 next to the Hot Rod Cafe in Post Falls, has closed.

Scott Lyon, who owned the 10-year-old business at 1640 E. Schneidmiller Ave. with his wife, Ginny, says in a voicemail greeting on the dealership's phone message recorder that the business has shut down. He thanks customers for their patronage and urges them to "ride safe."

Road House Cycles sold new V-twin cruiser bikes priced mostly from $25,000 to $35,000 and used bikes priced mostly between $5,000 and $15,000, as well as parts and apparel, and also operated a service shop.

It employed 12 people at its peak, but the sluggish economy caused it to trim that back to four people by early last year, Lyon told the Journal in an interview in March.

The Lyons had a roughly 4,500-square-foot building constructed in 2001 to house the business, and then expanded it to about 10,000 square feet three years ago. The dealership collaborated with the Hot Rod Caf, just to the west, to hold weekly summer gatherings that attracted hundreds of motorcyclists and hot rod aficionados.

Italian cafe, catering business set to grow
Ferrante's Marketplace Cafe, at 4516 S. Regal on Spokane's South Hill, is expanding by adding seating in its dining room, remodeling its kitchen, and purchasing a new catering van.

Ferrante's Cafe serves Italian dishes, many made from scratch with recipes that have been in co-owner Tony Ferrante's family for generations. It seats about 65 patrons. The front half of the 2,200-square-foot leased space serves as a gift shop. It sells jewelry, home decor, wine, other gift items, and gelato.

Ferrante, a Spokane native who started the business with his wife, Robbie, seven years ago, says the business's revenues have grown by 30 percent per year over the past two years. All that growth has been in catering and in retail sales of gift items sold at the front of the restaurant, he says.

To accommodate future growth, Ferrante's has added a "community table" that seats up to 18 patrons in the center of its dining room. It also has expanded work space in its kitchen, and purchased a van with a vehicle wrap that advertises the business.

"Our inquiries have increased dramatically in the five weeks since the van has been on the road," Ferrante says.

Longtime photo shop here closes its doors
A longtime Spokane photo-processing business, Chromastat Inc., has closed its doors.

Located at 725 E. Third, the business posted a notice on its door that said in part, "Chromastat Professional Quality Photo Processing is now closed. Thank you for your business for the last 25 years. We hope you enjoyed our work as much as we appreciated your patronage."

Attempts by the Journal to reach the owners were unsuccessful.

In a story published in the Journal in mid-2003, Chromastat's owners at that time, Randy Forbes and Calvin Lea said the company had been seeing some decline in sales, due partly to the digital photography trend.

The company specialized in the processing of color and black-and-white film, photo restoration, and the transfer of images from slides or negatives onto compact discs.

It also provided ophthalmic-photography processing services, a form of medical imaging, to eye clinics and ophthalmologists.