Archive for category: Ribbon Cuttings

Ellis-Aroha said she had been renting studio space at several locations around Florence but decided her business needed a more permanent address. She said she has eventual plans of relocating her business into the downtown area of Florence.

“My business has been up and running for a while,” Ellis-Aroha said. “I was living in Raleigh but didn’t really kind of settle in to building a community until I was here in Florence.”

Ellis-Aroha also cut the ribbon to celebrate joining the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.

She said she joined because of the chamber’s efforts in establishing businesses in the city’s downtown.

She said she grew up in Florence and left as a teenager. She also spent time in South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Raleigh, and Myrtle Beach. Ellis-Aroha said she decided to come back to Florence after she got connected with Ezra Brown, the owner of Soule Café. Brown invited her to come to Florence and teach classes a couple of times a week.

The company offers individual and small-business professional accounting services, tax preparation, up to $6,000 income tax refund advances and full-service payroll options.

Miller said he has known Jordan for more than 19 years and the two worked together in several professional settings before Jordan decided that she’d like to open her own agency. The two partnered to bring the business to Florence a little more than three years ago.

Brenda Perez, who co-owns the restaurant with her family, said joining the chamber allowed the business to be a more involved member of the Florence community.

“It really helps us to be a better member in the community of Florence,” Brenda said. “It also helps us to grow a little bit more, as well.”

Perez’s brother, Jose Jr., said the location was a great spot to put the new restaurant.

“With Florence’s downtown growing, we’ve greatly benefited from being here,” he said. “We’re expecting a lot of traffic and for it to continue to grow.

Brenda said the restaurant’s traffic started to pick up as of late.

“Especially since we got our liquor license, it’s been a lot busier,” Brenda said. “It’s a great spot right here across from Victor’s, and with the new hotel coming up, we’re really pleased with the location.”

Last week, Locked Inn joined ambassadors from the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce to hold a ribbon cutting for its new location at 214-A Dozier Blvd.

For a birthday celebration, brother and sister Maureen Allen and Gavin Smith went to Charlotte, where they tried out an escape room. Allen said she fell in love with the idea and asked her brothers to join in on the venture of bringing an escape room in Florence.

“This has been a great family adventure for us as our whole family has come together to give new ideas and scenarios for the business,” Allen said. “It’s such a fun and exciting time for folks to enjoy.”

Escape rooms are live adventure games in which players are “locked in” a room and have to use elements of the room to solve a series of puzzles to escape.

Rachel Lee, executive director of the organization, said families with medically fragile children in South Carolina are forced to make a decision: Either learn to operate all the intricate equipment that their child needs to live or let their child live in a hospital.

Heaven’s Hope wants to give families an alternative option.

“I would love it for children to have a safe place,” Lee said. “These children are exposed to so much pain and so many unknowns. I would love to create this home where this is their happy spot. It’s a place where they can blow bubbles and put stuff on the walls of their room. A place where they can just be a kid.”

The mission for Heaven’s Hope is “to provide a loving place for medically fragile children to call home that meets their emotional, spiritual, medical, physical, social and educational needs.”