Spinal Decompression Therapy in Mount Pleasant, SC

Check out a Q&A with The Brokerage LLC, Real Estate and Business Brokerage, a winner in our Roaring Twenties event.

The company, founded in 2019 in Mount Pleasant, has 13 employees and is led by David Seay and John Teffeau.

Principals of The Brokerage have experience as tenant, landlord and business owners. The company has represented tenants, buyers and sellers in a variety of commercial and residential real estate transactions as well as business sales. It specializes in exceeding client expectations in marketing properties and businesses for sale and lease.

What changes do you see ahead in your industry and how are you reacting to them?

The internet puts information in people's hands so quickly, especially in our industry, so we have technology tools that allow an agent to be nimble in the fields and then we train them on how to educate their clients as to how to interpret the information so it can be applied. Large websites are not providing the correct information to consumers and we train our people on how to protect the public as our call as Realtors.

How has your personal approach to leadership changed as your company has grown?

The more we focus on what is best for our agents on their individual levels (aka "meeting them where they are at present"), the better we all get as a company, employing the mastermind concept of putting many heads together increases learning and performance for all. Above all, we NEVER compare ourselves to other companies. We simply focus on doing and giving our best and we know the rest will take care of itself. We know that leadership can be a buzz word at times, but real leadership is mentoring and wanting the best for others and respectfully challenging growth at every turn.

What are the top attributes you seek when hiring employees? Are you planning to increase head count in the coming year?

We are absolutely expecting to expand head count! We are hiring daily because the word is getting out about how we can help agents grow personally and professionally. The top attribute we seek is hustle. We want people with work ethic that appreciate good old-fashioned hustle, which is why we use our proprietary #Hustle4Ever Training to help people get momentum and grow exponentially. All are welcome here.

If you were giving advice to business owners or managers, what would be the three most important tips you would include?

Think about what is in the best interest of the people you lead and provide those services to help support them. And if you don't know what they need, be courageous and ask. Constructive feedback is the breakfast of champions, but you have to be willing to listen. Also, be intentional in your planning and have patience with a strategy once your owners know that they are committed to winning together. Rome wasn't built in a day, but it burned in one.

Fun fact

The founders met in passing one time in 2001 at a mutual friend’s party in New York City. Five years later, John moved to South Carolina and became a patient of David's wife, who is a dentist. They all felt they had met before and in a few days they figured out how they had met and became fast friends for years until John and David decided to partner together.

Reach Jason at 864-568-7570.

For Sheila and Peter Rix, the longtime owners of Mount Pleasant’s Olde Colony Bakery, a career spanning 31 years has recently come to a close. After decades at the Olde Colony helm, the couple announced their retirement in October. Local business partners — and self-proclaimed devotees of the bakery — Ben Gramling and Mikell Harper took over ownership of the Lowcountry institution.

The venture represents an independent project, the new owners said, and it’s not their first foray into the food and beverage space. Also owners of Water’s Edge restaurant on Shem Creek, Gramling and Harper view the acquisition as another meaningful investment, and a rare chance to sustain a local legacy.

The Rix family visionAt the bakery, business was always a family affair. “I was 11 when we took over,” said Phil Rix, son of the former owners. “It was slightly by accident, and slightly my dad’s good business sense.”

At the urging of a family member in 1990, Peter traveled from Pittsburgh to Charleston to explore possible business opportunities. He first encountered the Olde Colony Bakery’s benne wafer — a crisp, sesame-studded staple of the Lowcountry. While savory iterations are also common, the bakery claimed the oldest known recipe for the sweet wafer, dating back more than 100 years. To Peter’s delight, the bakery was for sale.

“He bought the bakery for the benne wafers, essentially,” Phil said. At the time, his father already boasted a robust food and beverage background, formerly heading up the dining programs at Harvard University and the University of Pittsburgh. By 1990, Olde Colony, which had changed hands several times since its opening in the late 1940s (the Rix family is unsure of the exact date), was struggling.

“Our vision was to change it from a traditional mom-and-pop shop to more of a factory operation,” Phil said. Meanwhile, Charleston was growing rapidly with transplants and travelers flooding in by the year.

“As the city got more popular, so did the benne wafer,” Phil added. “Consequently, so did we.”

Olde Colony linked to benne wafersIt wasn’t long before the reinvigorated Olde Colony became synonymous with the product. The thin, coin-like wafers, packaged with the bakery’s signature gold label, could be found across the region and beyond, including on grocery store shelves, such as Harris Teeter and Publix.

The Rix family had all hands on deck in the bakery’s former downtown Charleston location.“I’ve done everything from scrubbing dishes, replacing toilets and mopping floors to developing recipes,” Phil said. “That’s how it goes in a family business — at the end of the day, it’s all up to you.

“My dad is a fantastic cook, so I learned a lot from him, as well as the professional folks who were in the kitchen when we bought the bakery,” Phil said. “Sometimes it was like having 20 parents. Eartha Keith, who decorated our cakes, must have worked at the bakery for 40 years. She was like my mom when my mom was busy in the store.”

Through it all, the bakery’s simple benne wafer recipe has remained unchanged.

Looking for new ownersFor the Rix family, preserving the wafer’s integrity — and the bakery’s enduring spirit — has always been paramount. The value held true when, earlier this year, the family decided it was time to sell the beloved business.

Despite interest in expanding to North Carolina and Georgia, the family was adamant that the business remain headquartered in the Lowcountry.

“It seemed silly for a Charleston cookie to be made anywhere else,” Phil said. Earlier this year, an offer arrived from Gramling and Harper, partners in Gramling Brothers Real Estate and Development, a multigenerational Charleston firm.

Drawn to the bakery’s success, the duo had a personal angle, too. Avid patrons Harper and his wife had family members who had visited the bakery during its early days at its former King Street location (it’s now located off of Long Point Road in Mount Pleasant).

“When our family bought it, the goal was to get it back to its glory days,” Phil said. “We took that seriously, and so do they. They want to keep the tradition alive.”

The sale, which closed in August, seemed a perfect fit, Harper said. “We’ve been customers for a long time — we’ve personally consumed a lot of their profits,” he laughed.

Intent on continuing the Olde Colony legacy, the new owners said they plan to stay the course, while continuing to thoughtfully grow the brand’s national presence.

“The bakery is very closely associated with Charleston, and folks around here know it well. We don’t intend to change much,” Harper said. “Our goal would be to carefully grow and expand, but we plan to keep the team in place, and be very deliberate in what we’re doing.”

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MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCIV) — The season of joy and celebration is taking on new meaning for one Mount Pleasant firefighter.

Nick Putskey proposed to his girlfriend, Katey Young, a teacher at Westview Primary Elementary, Thursday afternoon surrounded by family and friends atop the USS Yorktown.

“We’ve been on the same page since day one,” Young said when asked about meeting Putskey. “It’s the true fairytale.”

The proposal was somewhat of a fairytale, as well.

“My battalion chief was actually the masterplan of the whole idea,” Putskey said. “He said, ‘what do you have as an idea as far as an engagement?’ He was just like, ‘well, hear me out, see if you like this’ and I was like ‘yeah, that sounds awesome.’”

The plan was to scale the USS Yorktown, a nod to Putskey’s time spent in the Navy, as well as both of Young’s grandfathers.

The perfect front? Claim it as fire station training.

“We had ‘high-rise training,’ if you will,” Putskey said. “So that’s where climbing the ladder came into play.”

Young’s family was also in on the plan.

“It was actually under the guise as Santa for all of the grandkids,” Young explained. “We were going to take a picture with Santa. He was supposed to be flying in on the Yorktown.”

There was no Saint Nick in sight, but Nick Putskey had the ultimate present in hand.

“I was clueless until he got down on one knee and I was like, ‘what are you doing?’” Young said. “I did say yes, it just took a second because I was like, ‘I thought Santa was supposed to be here, and he was like ‘no!’”

Putskey and Young admit emotions were high, and for Putskey, there were plenty of nerves.

“I’m afraid of heights, so climbing a ladder was not fun,” Putskey said. “My foot actually slipped though the ladder because I was just getting so nervous.”

But the mission was a success.

“It couldn’t have gone any better,” Young said. “It was a really special moment, for sure.”

Putskey said it was a moment made possible by the bond of brotherhood.

“They were exactly how I wanted them to be,” Putskey said. “They were just like my extended family and I’m really grateful for that. It is truly the brotherhood of the fire service.”

Mount Pleasant, S.C. (WCIV) — The week for the Lowcountry foodies is finally here.

Today marks the start of Charleston Restaurant Week. The decades long event hosted in the Tri-county area offers discounted prices to encourage people to come to support the Lowcountry's culinary industry during the slow season.

Owners say the event could help kick off the new year for many restaurants struggling.

The 10-day event is from Thursday to ends Sunday, January 22nd. More than 50 restaurants from downtown Charleston, West Ashley, and Mount Pleasant are participating in the culinary event.

One participant is Hall’s Chophouse. The steak house has participated in the event for a decade, and the owner says this week was crucial to keeping the doors open in the early 2010s, turning his restaurant into one of the premier steak houses in the area.

So Tommy Hall says he knows firsthand how the week can make a huge impact on some restaurants, especially those recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Typically, this January is a quiet time of year. The holidays ended, people are getting back to the routines of their life of school, their job, and the restaurants suffer. It's a hard time. So, restaurant week was there to spike the economic growth in January. It just, it's amazing what it does,” Hall said.

According to a survey by Charleston Food and Wine, restaurants in the Lowcountry saw a 42 percent decrease in revenue during the pandemic.

Take Ty’s Roadside Coastal Kitchen in Mount Pleasant. The owner, Ty Neal, has been in the restaurant industry for decades. But when he opened his restaurant in mount pleasant two years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, he even admits it was one of the biggest struggles of his career.

However, Neal says restaurant week helped give him a boost during times when customer flow was slow. Now the restaurant is one of the up-and-coming foodie destinations in Mount Pleasant, gaining attention for its open kitchen setup and hearty American cuisine.

Neal's restaurant is one of five in Mount Pleasant offering discounted three-course meals.

While Neal says tourism season was great for his staff, it’s events like restaurant week that gave him the boost he needed to keep the momentum going now.

“Make no mistake, it's a tough time for restaurants. Staffing is tough, and costs are up, so those challenges are many. But we love what we do. And so, we talk every day about beating the odds and building our fan base, and you know trying to stay viable as an inch as an industry,” Neal said.

Ty’s roadside Coastal Kitchen is offering a deal of three courses for $32 during restaurant week.

Click here to view restaurants participating in the event.

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCBD)- Neighbors from Belle Hall, Grassy Creek and Tidal Walk are in opposition to all six of the possible plans to redesign the Long Point Road and Interstate 526 interchange.

Concerns were voiced on Tuesday at Mount Pleasant Town Hall with Mayor Will Haynie and councilmembers present.

“One of the major concerns with all the alternatives is that it closes off Belle Hall Parkway as an entrance to over 1,200 homes,” said Daniel Senden, a Grassy Creek Neighbor. “Closing (Belle Hall Parkway) off would exacerbate that problem by creating more traffic in other avenues that would cause a sincere safety concern for every resident.”

Neighbors don’t want some of the options to be approved because the construction of a flyover bridge will harm their communities. A handful of homes would have to be demolished if the flyover is built.

“Alternatives 2 and 6 also have a flyover bridge, a new interchange on I-526 in Mount Pleasant,” said Senden. “Putting that interchange directly in front of our neighborhood will be a major safety concern for us.”

The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) is collecting and listening to feedback from neighbors about the plan. SCDOT says that they will draw up new plans if needed.

“We probably wouldn’t add new alternatives unless something comes to light that we haven’t looked at before. But, we would refine them at this point to make them better and address the communities concerns,” said Joy Riley, the Project Director for SCDOT.

The State Ports Authority (SPA) uses the interchange for trucks to drive into the Wando Welch Terminal every day and is in favor of helping the traffic congestion.

“Having a dedicated road between I-526 and Wando Welch Terminal would provide direct access for container trucks carrying cargo. This would enhance safety and traffic fluidity for both the port and the community by having a large majority of truck traffic separated from residential traffic,” said Kelsi Brewer, an SPA spokesperson.

Neighbors like Angie Anderson are in favor of options like those being considered before redesigning the whole interchange.

“There’s stages that I think need to be looked at instead of pushing all these alternatives and all this money spent right off the bat without knowing if they’re effective,” said Anderson.

Councilmember Gary Santos thinks that the SPA could help the issue by using more barges instead of trucks to transport cargo from one terminal to another.

“When you have cargo that’s going to a certain port that doesn’t have to leave out of Charleston you’d put them on barges and send them over to North Charleston where they can load them out of ships there and go out of there. If you have ships calling at the Wando terminal then they can put that cargo on barges in North Charleston and send those over,” said Santos.

Neighbors along Long Point Road are staying positive while the SCDOT continues to sift through public comments.

“We want to continue to meet with the SCDOT. We want to continue to meet with the town and really work on a solution that benefits everybody,” said Senden.

The hope of Riley and her team is to have a public hearing in a year to decide what the plan is for construction.