Tuesday, July 9, 2013

My New Adventure: Hello, Jackson


Over the past few months, I have been working on a new blog called Hello, Jackson, which is all about featuring small local businesses in the Jackson community. I got the idea after one of our really high-end local restaurants closed, because some of the comments made about it were just ridiculous! Here are a few that I saved because I'm kind of a weirdo:


After reading a whole thread of this stuff, I was a little irritated. Jackson actually has quite a few local businesses, and a LOT of good restaurants (local and chain), so these people just need to be edjumucated. I don't know why I took some of these comments so personally either...like they were  attacking my taste in food and my willingness to spend money. I should really just stay off Facebook sometimes.

I started rolling the idea around in my noggin about starting a blog that would feature local businesses, and my friends seemed to think it was smart. I worked with my talented coworker and friend, Scott, on the design, and here we are! The first post is up, and I've got feelers out for the next few posts. I got a lot of great response on the Tulum post, which just made my heart really happy. I want the next post to be on this new Cuban food truck that just opened at the Farmer's Market. I had their empenadas on Saturday and they were DELICIOUS!

If you're local, you can check out the blog and facebook page {here} and {here}. I'd love to know your thoughts! I'm actually having a bit of a debate about this one place I want to feature. They have a few other locations in other cities, but it IS a family business. I'm waiting to hear back from my contact, but I THINK the family is based in Jackson. If it is, I feel like it should still work for the blog, since the whole point is to point people away from throwing money at corporations in favor of throwing money back at the community. A family business isn't a corporation, and a local family would at least be putting money back into the Jackson economy. I'm basically just having an internal dialogue now, so I'll wrap this up...

Another reason why I am extremely excited about running this blog is that I can practice more photography! I absolutely love food and product photography, but I have basically no experience with it. I'm hoping this will help me expand my portfolio a bit.

1 comment:

a little black cloud in a dress said...

I absolutely love the idea behind this!

My favorite local business here in Texas is a Thai restaurant, and over the last couple of years I've made friends with the owner (because I eat there like twice a week. lol) and she's nicest, most humble, hard working woman I've ever met. A few months ago a regular customer came in with her child, who was misbehaving and running all over the place, causing other customers to become bothered. The owner kindly asked her to keep the child under control since he was being a nuisance, and the woman went on every outlet she could and bashed the restaurant. It made me so mad!! So, I totally get where you're coming from.