For Rishona Myers, food has been a longtime passion. Though the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova Law alum’s career focused on events and meetings, when she had the chance to buy a Montgomery County olive oil and balsamic vinegar business six years ago, she ran with it.
Since taking over Olive Lucy in 2017, Myers has expanded to a new location, grown sales amid a pandemic, and this year launched a new segment of business which she hopes to spin into its own brand.
Running such a shop wasn’t initially in the cards, though, and Myers’ involvement with Olive Lucy was somewhat by chance. The store was established in 2013 by Harold Kaytes and his wife, Sharon, in the Shops at Valley Court Yard in Huntingdon Valley. Around that time, Kaytes approached Myers and her husband about investing in the shop.
Myers’ husband had a longtime relationship with the family, having been best friends with their son since childhood. At the time they weren’t in a position to invest, but they supported the burgeoning business and Myers even worked in the shop from time to time.
“From the ground up, we were kind of a part of it,” she recalled.
After Kaytes became sick in 2016, Myers stepped in, running day-to-day operations. She ultimately bought the business in March 2017 after Kaytes passed.
In the years since, Myers has put her stamp on Olive Lucy and grown its consumer base considerably. What once was a brick-and-mortar reliant store has since added e-commerce. Myers also expanded the brand to a new location, debuting its current storefront at 301 Leedom St. in Jenkintown in November 2017, just six months after taking over.
Olive Lucy is known for its infused olive oils and balsamic vinegars. The former are made with olives sourced from around the globe, while the balsamic comes from Italy. All are bottled on-site in Jenkintown. The store offers over two dozen extra virgin olive oil flavors including basil, black garlic and ginger, butter, blood orange, and rosemary. They come in four sizes and average $7 to $36 a bottle. The vinegars come in a large array of flavors, too, like Neapolitan herb, lavender, espresso, and dark aged traditional balsamic.
Olive Lucy also offers a selection of pantry items like pastas, seasonings and teas.
Despite the changes to business, Myers wanted to maintain the Olive Lucy name, a play on the iconic Lucille Ball sitcom “I Love Lucy.”
While Myers kept the name, she did some rebranding, in part to appeal to a broader demographic. Prior to her ownership, she believed Olive Lucy primarily brought in an older audience with disposable income who also lived in the immediate area.
“It was great … because the demographics worked, but I knew that once [Kaytes] was not the face of the company anymore, that demographic was going to shift toward more somebody my age,” Myers said. As such, she began marketing to those between their 20s and 40s. “That felt like an untapped market,” she added.
Eventually Myers, who has self-funded the business, decided to shutter the Huntingdon Valley store in March 2020, just before the Covid-19 lockdowns. “It was fortuitous. It probably saved my bacon,” Myers said of the timing.
For three months at the onset of the pandemic, the Jenkintown location remained closed. To boost business, Myers began virtual tastings, including for companies like Klick Health and Google.
In the years since, e-commerce has grown considerably and now makes up about 30% of business. The remaining 70% comes from the store or local markets. Retail caters to customers in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, while online sales are national.
At present, Myers estimates Olive Lucy bottles somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 units of oil and vinegar each year and that business has been growing between 5% and 10% annually.
“Even having two stores, and then consolidating back into one, we've never lost momentum. We've been steadily increasing over the last five years,” she said.
Some of that is due to her expansion efforts, but she also credits the pandemic for increasing consumers’ desire for higher-end goods.
“[People] realized that if they weren't going to go out to eat, they would use better products,” she said.
In addition to growing Olive Lucy, Myers this year launched a new segment called Peace & Olove. Her goal is to eventually spin that out into its own brand and get those goods on the shelves of other retailers.
At present, the Peace & Olove line has mugs and sweatshirts are forthcoming. For the latter, Myers said she is partnering with KIN Apparel. The Philadelphia brand, known for its satin lined hoodies, scored a $200,000 investment when it appeared on ABC hit show “Shark Tank” in October 2021. Myers and Alyssa Ghilardi, KIN’s director of operations and strategy, connected during their time in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.
Unlike Olive Lucy, the focus of Peace & Olove will be less on food and more on self-care. Future products might include home goods, additional apparel and possibly bath and body products. “The mission, the vision for that brand is to create a little more peace and a little more love,” Myers said, adding she is looking to partner with women- and minority-owned businesses. In time, she hopes to set aside a portion of profits to create grants that will support startups.
