MLILY Mattresses in Columbus, GA

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — What started as a pollination passion project in these Columbus locals’ backyard, has grown into a new nonprofit. Ashley Desensi and Veronica Anderson are the founders of Native Plant Coalition. Their nonprofit seeks to revitalize the Georgia ecosystem by growing native plants, rooting out invasive species and making a space for local pollinators.

Five years ago, the couple moved into their half-acre plot with their children as Desensi began studying at CSU to become a naturalist. At the time, the yard was overgrown with invasive weeds.

“I think it was a coincidence, but the thing is, if you look around everywhere, it’s a blank canvas, right?” said Desensi, pointing to the grass-filled yards across the street. By comparison, her own backyard resembles the uncut vegetation of a prairie.

“The American Dream is grass, right? This big, lush, green lawn that takes chemicals and so much water to maintain,” she continued, “We’re trying to change that idea [to] the new American Dream, right? Which is a habitat that’s alive.”

Desensi and Anderson, both Georgia natives, grew up planting seasonal flowers like hostas and lantanas. It wasn’t until Desensi started her CSU courses that the Native Plant Coalition founders realized these species were non-native and/or invasive.

“We learned about native plants and I was like, ‘What are we doing?’” said Anderson, a full-time practice manager at Affordable Veterinary services. She stood in the pair’s backyard, surrounded by native species like Coneflowers (also known as echinacea), Black-eyed Susans and Mountain Mint.

“I didn’t understand why [stores are] selling invasive species that are taking out all of our natives all throughout the woods and in our environment,” Anderson continued.

She added their garden requires little water aside from rain since the plants are meant to be in the area. Anderson and Desensi also keep their garden safe for pollinators by not using any chemicals as part of their maintenance routine.

Native plants in the pair’s backyard have been sourced from all over the state. Since native plants were not widely available in Columbus, Anderson and Desensi drove over 90 minutes to Fayetteville and Perry to curate from specialized nurseries. They also did native plant trades through Facebook Marketplace and collected seeds from locations like Cooper Creek Park, where this is permitted.

Today, the pair’s backyard is a haven for native plants and for local pollinators. These include more common species like Gulf fritillary butterflies, carpenter bees and goldfinches, as well as rarer ones. Last year, Anderson and Desensi identified an endangered Southern Plains Bumble Bee in their garden.

Desensi said, “When people talk about saving the bees, I think there should also be a caveat of ‘Save the native bees,’” said Desensi, adding most campaigns focus on honeybees, which are not native to the United States. Honeybees also out-compete other native bees, Desensi said.

As the new school year rolls around, Native Plant Coalition is gearing up to bring their mission to a wider community of locals. Desensi and Anderson hope to teach tour groups about native species with organized walks through their backyard or local parks. Eventually, they’d like to work on creating native plant installations in public places across the city for educational purposes.

COLUMBUS, Ga., May 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Crunch Franchise today announced the upcoming fall opening of Crunch Columbus, a $5 million, 45,000-square-foot fitness facility, with $1.5 million dollars' worth of state-of-the-art equipment. Crunch Columbus is located in a newly renovated space at 2925 Manchester Expressway, previously occupied by Best Buy.

Fusing fitness with entertainment to make serious exercise fun, Crunch Columbus will offer top-quality cardio and strength training equipment, a functional training zone, a dedicated group fitness studio, boxing studio, a full-service tanning salon, HydroMassage® beds, HIITZone™ and more. Members looking for assistance reaching their goals will have access to our staff of highly experienced personal trainers.

Crunch Columbus is owned by Fitness Ventures, LLC, one of the fastest growing franchisees in the Crunch system with numerous locations throughout the U.S. Crunch Columbus will be the 39th location nationwide for Fitness Ventures, LLC. "We are excited to bring the Crunch brand to Columbus," said CEO Brian Hibbard. "Crunch is for everyone, from the first-time gym-goer to the seasoned athlete."

Crunch is known for its innovative group fitness programming and will offer a wide range of classes every week, including 70 proprietary classes that can only be found at Crunch. Class examples include BodyWeb with TRX®, Zumba®, Cardio Tai Box, Yoga Body Sculpt and Fat Burning Pilates. Members looking for additional guidance or motivation can utilize the HIITZone™, a proprietary high-intensity interval group training program.

Prospective members can now visit www.crunchcolumbus.com or call 334.214.1099 to reserve memberships at discounted rates beginning at $9.99 per month. Founding members can receive a pre-sale rate with complimentary enrollment and one month free, in addition to free t-shirts, discounts on small group and personal training, and more.

Crunch is a gym that believes in making serious exercise fun by fusing fitness and entertainment and pioneering a philosophy of 'No Judgments.' Crunch serves a fitness community for all kinds of people, with all types of goals, exercising all different ways, working it out at the same place together. Today, we are renowned for creating one-of-a-kind group fitness classes and unique programming for our wildly diverse members. Headquartered in New York City, Crunch serves two million members with over 425 gyms worldwide in 37 states, the District of Columbia, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and Spain. Crunch is rapidly expanding across the U.S. and around the globe.

SOURCE Crunch

One day in Spring of 2021, Brian Cook was driving home with an obscene amount of vinyl records from an Opelika record shop.

A man in his 40’s, Cook has lived through the progression of being able to listen to music from records and cassette tapes to CDs and then digital music. He’s bought the same albums multiple times in different media as technology changed over the years.

The reason it’s important to listen to and appreciate records for what they are, Cook said, is because they aren’t just a way to listen to music.

“It’s an entire experience,” he said. “That’s the beauty of it. You have to actually pay attention to what you’re doing. And I think a lot of young people these days, and people my age, appreciate that experience.”

During the trip, Cook found himself wishing that there was a record shop in his hometown of Columbus to cut down on the driving time Alabama or Atlanta in order to indulge in his passion of listening to and collecting vinyl records.

The random thought lit a spark in the stay-at-home dad, and he needed knowledgeable people to tell him starting this business was a terrible idea. Cook met with business owners who operate in downtown Columbus.

They all said it was a great idea.

“Having been thwarted there, I decided to go ahead and run with it,” Cook told the Ledger-Enquirer.

He created a business plan and went to the Small Business Development Center at Columbus State University who helped Cook refine the plan.

He can now educate residents about vinyl records while helping people experience albums the way artists intended them to be heard. Blue Canary Records opens August 5 on Broadway.

“This is something of a passion project that I’ve really been excited to do,” Cook said. “It represents a new space in Columbus for people that like music.”

There are two things that Cook loves to do: listen to music and talk.

And he is excited to talk to people who will visit Blue Canary having never experienced listening to music on a vinyl record before. The shop will have listening stations for people to gain that experience in the store.

“You can come to me,” Cook said. “And we can talk about what you want to listen to. And if you’ve never touched a record, I can walk you through how to do that.”

He will teach customers about the different types of record players and how they work. Headphones will be available along with a lounge area, Cook said, so people can find music they really like.

Blue Canary currently has around 4,000 records in its collection, with about 2,500 LPs (long-playing vinyl records). He’s got another 1,500 of those 45 records, small records with one or two songs per side. Blue Canary will also be selling CDs and cassettes.

“I’ve got quite a bit of music,” Cook said. “I would say that about 80% of it is stuff that I have procured over time from various places.”

Most of the records are used, but about 20% of the records will be newer releases directly from the distributor, he said.

Along with the music, turntables will be available to buy. Some of the turntables will be a better fit for people who are new to the experience, Cook said, while others will be more advanced.

The record shop will also buy, sell and source records, he said. Cook is willing to make potential offers on old records people may have that they want to sell, and Blue Canary will be able to help find specific records that customers may be looking for.

Located next door to Frank’s Alley on Broadway, the shop sports a mural taking up one wall that was created by George F. Baker III. One of Cook’s friends recommended the Atlanta-based artist, and Baker agreed to do the piece after Cook reached out to him.

“I wanted people to walk in off the street and go, ‘Wow,’” Cook said. “There are so many opportunities to capture people’s attention.”

To further engrain the experience on customers, the Blue Canary features a dedicated space for musicians to perform live. An area in the back of the shop can host about 30 people, with screens and speakers emitting the performances to the front part of the shop and outside on Broadway.

Two live performances have already been booked for Blue Canary’s grand opening on Aug. 5 starting at 11 a.m. He plans for the event to be “a big party” with music and five dollar hot dogs from Frank’s Alley. There will also be sweets provided by other vendors along with activities and giveaways throughout the day until 8 p.m.

“I’m very excited,” Cook said. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun.”

More about the grand opening and future events can be found on the shop’s social media accounts.

Cook and his wife, Christy, are Columbus natives. He attended Spencer High School while his wife went to Brookstone. He then worked at Aflac for 13 years, and Christy became an employee at CSU. Cook became a stay-at-home dad to their 12-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter during the pandemic.

His long connection to Columbus was part of the reason it was important to Cook that the city have its own record store.

“Opelika and Auburn are kind of their own thing,” he said. “And they’ve got their own population. Columbus is the second largest city in the state, and the fact we don’t have a record store kind of boggled my mind when I started thinking about it.”

The city has a lot of people with a lot of diverse tastes, Cook said. He wanted to give Columbus something they could be proud of, and being downtown is important for the shop’s success.

“My customer base is Columbus,” Cook said. “It’s the people that live here. It’s the tourism that comes through. It’s the military. It’s the students at the Schwob School of Music.”

This story was originally published July 17, 2023, 5:00 AM.

A Columbus woman is opening a new shop selling only products by local creators and producers in the former Visitor’s Center on Front Avenue.

The Peach Shoppe owner Rachel Kelly will offer a variety of clothing, jewelry, accessories, prints, stained glass artwork in the store. There will be space for food items in the shop as well, Kelly told the Ledger-Enquirer, particularly Georgia peaches when they are available.

Peach crops across the state have struggled this year, she said, but Kelly was able to ensure that the shop would have the fruit available for the opening.

“This is called the Peach Shoppe & Co.,” Kelly said. “So, we’ve got to have Georgia peaches in here. I even call them my little peaches.”

Everything sold in The Peach Shoppe will be sourced from local providers that Kelly refers to as “makers,” she said.

Kelly plans to offer ad space for local service providers and keep up to date information of events and things to do in Columbus.

She will be working with Visit Columbus, GA to gather information for customers, said Peter Bowden, president of Visit Columbus. The organization has worked with other businesses to distribute information, he said, and The Peach Shoppe can work as a kind of unofficial adjunct to Visit Columbus.

“Both locals and visitors will have a good experience with what she’s offering,” Bowden said.

Local creators who need a place where their customers can safely pick up purchased items will also be able to make use of lockers located in The Peach Shoppe. Kelly believes she can help people avoid meeting up with potential strangers in parking lots or other places to complete a sale.

A grand opening for The Peach Shoppe & Co. will be held July 1 at 11 a.m.

“I want to walk in here and feel like this is home,” Kelly said. “When they live here (I want them to feel) like this is Columbus. And people that don’t live here, I want them to wish they did.”

Kelly wanted her business to be something new and exciting, which led to her thinking of a way to build her business while helping others build their own.

Her love for the creative community in Columbus gave her the idea to bring people together to create one shop, Kelly said.

“So that’s what the ‘& Co.’ is,” she said. “It stands for collaboration, community, Columbus — all of the goodness included into the Peach Shoppe.”

Kelly wants customers to be able to look at the products in the shop and recognize the people who made them from school, work or a casual acquaintance.

When potential makers reach out to Kelly to collaborate, she checks that they live in Georgia and how local to Columbus they are. Sometimes she asks them to tell her a fun fact about the city. Then she considers the products they are selling to make sure that makers are not overlapping too much.

“I want everyone to succeed,” she said. “And I feel like the best way to do that is to have a little sampling of all types of products.”

The Peach Shoppe is currently working with 23 makers including Custom Cake Studio, Swinehearts BBQ and WSC Candle Co. There are also makers who will provide crocheted items and earrings along with local authors and artists who will be selling their work in The Peach Shoppe.

On the white floor in a back room of the shop, Kelly has had all of the makers she’s worked with, along with friends and family to have a visual representation of the collaboration. She wants the makers and other business owners that she’s working with to know they have a community that will help them when they need it.

“I want them to know that this is a safe place,” Kelly said. “This is a safe haven for creators, people, to feel seen and heard and understood because building a business is hard.”

Kelly landed on the name The Peach Shoppe because she’s the only Georgia girl in her family. She’s felt a sense of community in the state as she’s grown up here, Kelly said, but has been aware that she’s the first in her family to be a Georgian.

“They’re all such northerners,” she said. “My mom’s side, my dad’s side, my two older sisters. Everyone is from Michigan.”

The family moved to Columbus in the early 1980’s when Kelly’s father got stationed in Fort Benning, now called Fort Moore. Not long after the move, Kelly was born and her family stayed in Georgia.

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” she said. “I never moved away. Honestly, never even thought about it. I guess it’s my home. These are my people.”

Throughout her life, Kelly has always enjoyed crafting. She stayed busy between work, school and crafting. She began to make vinyl crafts like monograms that could be put on objects like tumblers or laptops.

“I was like, this is pretty neat, I wonder if I can make a t-shirt,” Kelly said.

By 2016, Kelly officially started her business, The Peach Shoppe. She continued working as a banker while running her own business until the COVID-19 pandemic began.

She’d loved her job working at a financial institution, but the pandemic showed her what she was passionate about.

“When COVID happened, and all the people went away, I had to just sit in an office and talk to people on the phone,” she said. “I realized the whole time, it was the people. It wasn’t actually the job.”

So, Kelly created a business plan and began networking with other shops to sell her items in stores. But she eventually found a location earlier this year in February where she could open her own storefront.

When Kelly first walked into the former Visitor Center, she knew this building was perfect.

Visit Columbus, GA vacated the building last September, Bowden said. When the pandemic began, the center had fewer visitors.

“We realized that it was costing us more to operate than it was providing a service,” he said.

People use their cell phones more often now, Bowden said. Visit Columbus, GA has had more success using a mobile visitor center and working with businesses, like The Peach Shoppe, that offer souvenirs and other products that have a Columbus-focus.

The decor and style of the building left behind from the Visitor Center is what appealed to Kelly when she envisioned what The Peach Shoppe would be.

A blue painting of the Chattahoochee River was on the floor, there was a black and white cityscape on the wall and an ode to Coca-Cola being invented in Columbus was on another wall.

“I see the river every day,” Kelly said. “And there’s a train that goes by — it’s perfect.”

Kelly’s mom, Tina Aguilar, and her husband, Brandon Kelly, have been instrumental in helping her put the store together, she said. Because she and her husband have been unable to have children of their own, the couple have made the Peach Shoppe, their dog, Chevy, and loving their nieces and nephews fill the void, Kelly said.

Brandon has supported her by building many of the tables and furniture in the store.

“He has become a woodworker out of love and the passion that he sees in me,” Kelly said. “So, we just make it happen.”

This story was originally published June 26, 2023, 5:00 AM.

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A new sports bar will open in downtown Columbus, reviving the former Uptown Tap location on Broadway that closed two years ago.

There is no official opening date for the sports bar, Purge Nation, co-owner Tammy Stephens said, but Columbus residents can expect it to open within the next few weeks.

The name Purge Nation came from a need to release negative emotions after Stephens’ father passed away, she told the Ledger-Enquirer. Stephens opened the first Purge Nation, which specializes in recreational ax throwing, in West Point about a year-and-half ago, she said.

“You don’t have any place to release your stress,” Stephens said. “That’s where the ax came in. You can throw the ax and release it. You can go do whatever you need to do.”

While the Columbus location won’t have ax throwing like the Purge Nation in West Point, the group hopes that Purge Nation will continue to be a place for everyone to feel comfortable enough to relax in.

Stephens began working with co-owners of the Columbus location, Kani Estrada and Richard Jackson, in West Point.

Estrada did a lot of the business’ artwork and worked in security, while Jackson started with Purge Nation as a cook. The three soon began to share a passion of opening a business together, leading to the new location in Columbus.

“We wanted to have something really fun for everybody — no matter what walk of life you are — to come and have a good time,” Stephens said.

Stephens knew she wanted an outdoor atmosphere for the second Purge Nation location. A light bulb went off in Estrada’s mind.

“I got the perfect place for you,” he told her.

The Uptown Tap closed in January 2021 after operating at 1024 Broadway for 22 years. Estrada knew the prime location in downtown Columbus would be perfect for their sports bar.

“I used to come to The Tap,” Estrada said. “Especially on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’d shoot a little pool, get a drink or two.”

Stephens, Estrada and Jackson agreed they wanted the former Uptown Tap to be the location of their new sports bar, but weren’t sure how to connect with the owners to acquire the building.

One day about six months ago, Stephens and Estrada were walking down Broadway. Stephens had just gotten coffee, and the two decided to go look at the building again.

“Tammy, there’s a sign with a number on it,” Estrada said in disbelief.

Securing the Broadway space was surreal and exciting for the business partners, Stephens said.

“It’s a great vibe,” she said. “We love Broadway. We love the Columbus atmosphere.”

Originally from Miami, Estrada also enjoys the outdoor bar scene, and the location offers a large outdoor courtyard that could serve as the perfect venue for live music, a DJ and hosting events.

A DJ will be situated in the courtyard, along with a platform stage for live performances. Determined to preserve the building and history of Columbus, any graffiti artwork added in the space will be placed on panels that can easily be removed.

This will ensure the original brick is left untouched, Estrada said, and allows the courtyard to serve as event space for clients.

They plan to refurbish the building, Stephens said, but want to keep as much of The Tap the same as possible. The large “Blues Brothers” figurines will continue to have a place in the building, and old signage from The Tap will remain up. The goal is return the building back to its former glory, she said, and not tear anything down.

“It’s 100% important to us to keep the history of this (building),” Stephens said. “Everyone wants to tear something down and put something new. And new is not always better.”

Purge Nation will have a variety of games including cornhole and pool. During the brunch hour, the bar will be family friendly with games like Connect Four and Jenga being available for kids to play. However, individuals must be over the age of 21 to enter during evening hours, Estrada said, especially on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

The food served at Purge Nation will be typical bar food, Stephens said. They will serve items like burgers, wings, loaded fries with their own twist, she said. On Saturdays and Sundays there will be brunch between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. with a different menu that includes lamb chops, salmon, ribeye, catfish and grits.

Jackson’s experience serving and cooking in West Point will transfer over to the Columbus location, she said, along with his ability to connect with customers. Jackson enjoys getting to know people who visit and memorizing the orders of his regulars.

“It makes a customer actually feel good when you come into the bar and your drink is already right there in front of you,” Jackson said. “Because I know that’s what they want.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2023, 10:07 AM.