Until this spring, they were along Ahwatukee’s most successful small retailers.
MudPie Home Boutique’s Mike D’Amato, my Wine Cellar and Lucy’s Place’s Kathleen Fordyce and That Italian Place’s Larry Hughes created gathering spots with the cachet to bring business from other parts of town.
Then bad luck struck.
The sluggish housing market forced D’Amato to shutter his home-dcor business. a back injury made it necessary for Fordyce to sell her still-prosperous wine store and restaurant. Hughes closed his Italian restaurant after failing to resolve a leasing dispute.
What do people who have spent years living and breathing mom-and-pop retail do when they no longer own a store? The three former business owners agreed to share their stories.
Mike D’Amato
“It’s like being hit by a tornado,” said D’Amato, who closed MudPie Home Boutique, the 16-year-old store that he ran with his wife, Suzie, at the end of March.
“It’s a real shock to your ego and self-confidence,” he said. “Before, we ate, slept and breathed MudPie. Now I’m a $10–an-hour employee.”
In 2008, MudPie generated $800,000 in revenue. Now D’Amato has filed for personal and business bankruptcy. He has lost his house in Fountain Hills to foreclosure and exhausted his retirement savings trying to bail out the failing store.
But he’s grateful to have landed a 40-hour a week job selling bathroom fixtures at The great Indoors. In a few months he will have company health insurance.
D’Amato said he doesn’t have much time to reflect on the failure of his store. When not at work, he spends most of his time searching for a higher-paying job as a regional sales representative.
When he does think about MudPie, he marvels at how quickly it went from a cash cow to a money pit. He wonders why more of his once-regular customers were not more supportive in the economic downturn.
In 2006, customers would drive south from Scottsdale and north from Casa Grande for MudPie’s unique, whimsical merchandise. Revenues were soaring and Westcor, the shopping-mall company, was courting him for a second location at a center in the north Valley, D’Amato said.
Two years later, the mood had changed. Customers still came in, but poked around looking for bargains instead of leaving with full shopping bags. D’Amato said it would have been practical to close the store then, but he kept hoping things would turn around.
D’Amato’s new home is in the Desert Ridge section of north Phoenix. He has no plans to attend the bankruptcy auction or spend much time in Ahwatukee.
But his disillusionment with the Ahwatukee store does not mean D’Amato is disillusioned entrepreneurship.
“Call me stupid, but I would do it all over again,” he said.
Kathleen Fordyce
Wine connoisseur Fordyce and her husband, Tom, ran their popular wine bar, store and restaurant for 13 years. then Fordyce developed back problems and needed time for surgery and physical therapy.
In short, she no longer had the stamina for the 15-hour workdays that she says my Wine Cellar and Lucy’s place required.
“My Wine Cellar is really an entertainment business,” Fordyce said. “No matter what is going on in your own life, you have to be happy and smiling for the customers.”
The business, which recently had annual sales of $750,000, was sold in late April.
“It was 100 percent bittersweet,” Fordyce said. “I signed the papers and just bawled. I sent out an e-mail to our regular customers and immediately got back 556 responses . . . but our kids thanked us.”
Fordyce said she and her husband eventually will need to work again. but first they plan to spend the summer enjoying themselves.
They took a trip to the vineyards of Northern California to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. It was the first wine-country trip they had taken just for fun since they started my Wine Cellar from scratch in 1998.
Fordyce said her family will spend time going to the kids’ ball games, hanging out by the backyard pool and playing cards. “Tommy and I finally can sit at home and enjoy all the wine we have collected over the years,” she quipped.
Fordyce said they plan to stay in Ahwatukee and remain active with volunteer work and fundraisers for schools, the Ahwatukee little League and civic groups.
“I’m on to the next step in my life,” she said.
Larry Hughes
Hughes still receives one or two e-mails a week from former customers who want to know when he is going to reopen That Italian place. He doesn’t have an answer.
The popular new York-style Italian restaurant was filled with regulars. Other fans drove from the far edges of the Valley for specialties like Long Island clams. Hughes projected sales of $500,000 this year.
But after failing to negotiate a new lease with his landlord, Hughes said he was forced to close That Italian place at the end of March.
“People are still checking in,” said Hughes, who purchased the restaurant from its original owners, Mary Ann and Richie Laser, in 2007. “I’ve also had all kinds of calls from developers.”
Hughes said he feels fortunate that he does not have to make a quick decision about a new restaurant. The Ahwatukee resident of 10 years said he has enough savings to sustain himself while running a small catering business.
“I am not even sure I will do the same cuisine, but I definitely will be back in the business in some way,” he said.
Hughes is doing volunteer work for the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of Commerce, for which he is a board member. He also plans to spend July in Wyoming with his family.
“You don’t have time to deal with all of your emotions when you are in the process of closing a business,” Hughes said. “There is so much paperwork and so many things to handle. I spent a lot of time helping place my employees in other restaurants.”
He finally has time to think things over now.
“The other night I was at home watching a game on TV and simmering marinara sauce for an event I was catering,” Hughes said. “I thought, ‘Hey, this isn’t too bad.’ “
Ahwatukee retailers share stories of losing their businesses
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