The Black-owned Candle Bar set up shop along busy Cabarrus Avenue East in downtown Concord in late November.
CONCORD, N.C. — For Bria Smith, it was a no-brainer. The vision for a place where people can express their creativity while reducing stress is all-encompassing in her candle bar.
“Every day we get to go back to the communities we live in,” Smith told WCNC Charlotte.
A native of New York, Smith has called Carolina home for many years. During the pandemic, she returned to New York after her uncle’s death. It was during this stressful time that the idea for Her Candle Bar was born.
“I started making candles because I needed to start doing something that tickled me in a different way and made me feel relaxed,” Smith said. “This allowed me to really focus on relaxing myself and establishing my own self-care without thinking about everything that was going on.”
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Candlebar opened in late November on busy Cabarrus Avenue East in downtown Concord. Concord’s opening comes as cities across North Carolina rank among the best cities to start a business.
Durham, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem all rank in the top 15 wallet hubs. Numbers like these are exactly what draws entrepreneurs to these areas. Smith said he took credit for it for helping her start her business. This is a program established at the Cabarrus Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to provide an application-based, six-week intensive boot camp for early-stage and pre-launch applications in Cabarrus and Rowan Counties. Support retail business owners. Program focus topics include business fundamentals, strategy, branding and marketing, e-commerce, POS and inventory, real estate/licensing, and more.
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“I could Look at the economic investments that are being made in the trees and the apartment buildings and how communities are being formed just 10, 15 minutes from me in Harrisburg,” Smith said.
Mr. Smith has been witnessing that economic investment for some time. “We’ve had to figure out ways to have fun around the house, and at the same time figure out ways to relax and practice self-care. It’s been a very stressful time,” Smith said.
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Currently, in addition to selling candles and self-care products, they also host candle-making classes.
“This was a transition from a home-based business,” Smith said sadly. “It started out as a fun thing that you did for yourself and your self-care to love. Okay, I want to model this. And I want to model this for other people as well.” We would like to provide this.
So, back to the topic: Concord is not on the list of top cities for business owners.
But Smith invested here anyway.
When we asked her why, she said: “We know Charlotte well, I went to school there, but from a business standpoint, it’s kind of saturated. And here in Cabarrus County, has great things and experiences that are needed.”
This is where economic investment continues to grow.
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