Ezine Feature Story

EZINE Feature Story

You often buy candy from their shops or become mesmerized by the toys that they stock on their shelves; purchase tickets from them to see movies, as well as having them repair your computer. There the owners behind the well-known businesses we love and often take for granted.

We visit the Big Top Candy Shop for a sugar high, go to the Alamo for a dinner and movie, and support local businesses that we couldn’t entertain ourselves without. Austin is full of interesting people with extravagant backgrounds, and stories for the telling. Whether they are an owner of a computer repair business, a large strand of movie theaters, or mom and pop candy shops, they all have stories.

Local storeowner Brandon Hodge owns two of the most popular stores on South Congress, Big Top candy shop, and Monkey See, Monkey. He’s been in the toy business since his college years, and decided he didn’t want to work in retail anymore.

“By that time [in the mid-90s attending college], I had been working sales floors for a few years, and I wanted to more on to something else. I wanted to write and work as an editor on magazines, which I had always wanted to do since high school,” Hodge said. “But somehow, during my college years, I gravitated back to working in funk local shops, and landed a job at a great toy and gift shop, where I learned to run a store from the top down.”

Hodge wasn’t the only store/business owner that discovered his passion and dove in to starting his own place of work.

“I was working for Shell Oil right out of college and realized that I didn’t want to retire from that job. I loved movies so I decided to open a movie theater,” Tim League, owner of Alamo Drafthouse and MONDO, said. “Even when we first started out, we were building a single screen mom and pop movie theater. Over the years it grew slowly and then quickly.”

These owners may be successful now, but their success didn’t come without a few bumps in the road, shaping them into the people they are today. Hodge says his experience in the past with his former bosses helped him to shape himself as a boss.

“I’ve had a few bosses over the years that were real jerks, who think the only way to inspire others to work is to boss them around and be aggressive,” Hodge said. “But, I found that they didn’t get the same performance or loyalty out of employees as they would by being respectful and considerate, so I always promised myself that I’d never be like that, either to employees or customers. But, business can be stressful, so you just have to learn when to let things roll off your back and pick your battles. I try to give my employees the space they need to work and do their best, and encourage them to do things that need to be done in ways other than bossing them around.”

League said that while his business model is thriving today, he’s had some experiences that influenced him to implement different practices today.

“Our first theater in Bakersfield was in a really terrible location,” League said. “That business failed and we moved to Austin to start again. So I learned what is now a cliché, but is still very true…the importance of location.”

Hodge and League said they had/have powerful role models in their lives that have inspired them and pushed them to achieve their goals.

“I grew up on a farm in a small Texas town, and my whole family had to work and pitch in to make the business a success, so I’d have to say that my parents are my biggest inspiration,” Hodge said. “They instilled a strong work ethic in me from a very young age, and even now still come by and help me out at the candy shop the way I helped them when I was younger, I couldn’t have asked for a more positive influence in my life.”

With League he said his role models have taught him something.

“I always admired some of the early showmen of cinema: David Friedman, William Castle and Kroger Babb,” League said. “They knew that it was always important to give your audience a little something extra.”

These Austin owners don’t stop at their businesses when it comes to being involved in their community.

“About 5 years ago the other merchants along South Congress elected me to be the President of our merchant association, so I’ve become deeply immersed in local politics, and spend a lot of time at City Hall looking after the interests of myself and fellow merchants,” Hodge said. “I get to contribute to the community and help shape laws and rules that are fair not only for businesses, but customers and residents in the area.”