Not many businesses offer customers the opportunity to work on their tan while catching up on their e-mail while enjoying a drink while their car is being washed and detailed. That unique twist, along with other aspects of Wayne and Tori Brozek’s new business, Paradise, should certainly attract the extreme multitasker.
The Gering couple said the new business represents more than a million-dollar investment in the Scottsbluff community and the creation of nearly 40 full- and part-time jobs.
The new business is unique to say the least. It not only houses Marketing Consultants, a company that provides business marketing merchandise, but also a variety of services that the owners describe as a little of the big city for a growing town. Tori said the ultimate goal is to create more exposure for its marketing business.
The couple is targeting Paradise to an upscale clientele, while also offering services that everyone can enjoy tanning beds, a light deli featuring homemade soups, rolls, muffins, sandwiches and salads, a beverage bar offering all-natural fruit smoothies and gourmet coffees, and even a martini bar. Free Internet access is provided with computers for those who don’t bring their own laptops. In pleasant weather, visitors can relax alfresco near a rock waterfall and fire pit.
“Scottsbluff is growing and it’s OK for us to have the same stuff that cities have. We think this community needed something a little different,” Tori said.
For the ambitious, Paradise offers an environmentally-friendly car wash and a convenient place to bathe the family pet. The unusual pet bath is designed to accommodate large dogs in the bed of a 2008 Ford Super Duty pick-up. The car wash recycles water to re-use in either the car wash or on landscaping.
“I am not a tree-hugging, liberal kind of guy, but I am very cognizant that the economy in western Nebraska lives or dies by water,” said Wayne.
While their cars are being washed, multitaskers can work on their tans or answer emails—or just recuperate from a busy day with a glass of wine or a martini.
Ingrid Battershell, director of the Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) in Scottsbluff, provided assistance in evaluating the feasibility of the project, developing cash flow projections on the new businesses and preparing the loan applications for financing the project.
According to the Brozeks, “Ingrid is very skilled in her position and is a very big asset for western Nebraska. Without her assistance, I am sure we would have not been successful in our loan application process.” Or, as Tori put it, “the service NBDC provided paved a dirt road and made our dream come true”.