CONNEAUT – As Analynn DiFilippo surveyed the crowd around her four years ago, she expressed a little bit of surprise that Sandbar Suds had been in business for a full year.
Standing in nearly the same spot on Saturday, Aug. 8, DiFilippo, co-owner of Sandbar Suds along with her wife, Jeneane, mom, Sue Horvath, and sister, Amber Kissman, had a very different feeling as she celebrated the shop’s 5th Annual Birthday Bash.
“I think the shock is a little bit less,” DiFilippo said. “Now, I feel like we’re established. We’re part of this community. We belong here. This is what we do. We throw a concert series. We throw Easter egg hunts. We throw birthday bashes. We put back into the community. The shock that people still show up to them, though, is still very real. If you caught me today at 12 o’clock, 12:15, I was saying, ‘I don’t know, there isn’t many people here. Do you think anyone’s going to come?’ Everyone just rolls their eyes at me now and they’re like, ‘Yes, they will come. If you build it, they will come.’ They did come and we had a great first half of the birthday bash. We’re getting ready for the second half right now and I expect a good crowd there, too.”
The difference between being surprised and feeling established is simply showing up every day.
“I think, maybe, (the difference is you) just keep doing it,” DiFilippo said. “The more you do it, the less imposter syndrome you have is what I think maybe it is. Like I said just now, I’m still surprised when people show up. There were 15 kids in the foam pit and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, people showed up, how cool.’ I feel like we belong here doing this. It’s our fifth year, we’ve done it. We know what we’re doing. We know how to do it. Let’s do it.”
With Sandbar Suds, 997 Day St., celebrating five years, a common joke has developed among the husbands in the community. They say they need to keep their wives away from the shop.
“I love that,” DiFilippo said. “That is good. That means everything. It means our community stood right behind us and supported us and helped us get to this point where we can feel like that.”
Horvath said that maybe the husbands could benefit from their wives’ shopping habits.
“I think it’s absolutely fabulous and they should want their wives to come down because they can get beard oil and beard balm and good smellies for themselves and good soaps for themselves, as well,” Horvath said. “I think it’s a bonus all the way around for everybody. Send your wives here to bring stuff for you and them and the kids. We have stuff for men, women and children.”
Building Sandbar Suds into an established store was the only option for Horvath and the rest of the ownership team.
“The first thing that gave us pause, made us think we weren’t going to be here, is one of the business owners in here said, ‘What are you doing,’” Horvath said. “We explained what we were building in the real estate office and the soap store and that person laughed and said, ‘You guys won’t be here in a year. Nothing ever makes it down here in this harbor.’ The question is, have you ever met us? Before you say that, have you met us? When we say we’re going to do it, we mean we’re going to do it and we’re willing to sacrifice and go hard and make things work and that’s exactly what we’ve done. It’s been a lot of sacrifice. It’s been hard work and I don’t regret it. We’ve always been above water. We’ve never been below water.”
The people of Conneaut have been there supporting the store every step of the way.
“It’s the community,” Horvath said. “Conneaut is great. People can sit and say Conneaut is trash all day long, but you know what? Conneaut is absolutely fabulous. It’s great here and the people have been great to us.”
When customers find something they love about the products at Sandbar Suds, they share it with their friends and families. For example, some customers stock up at the store before an annual trip to Ireland. They then share the products while away from the country.
“Part of our success, I think, is (the customers) send it as a gift to California, then we get orders from California,” Horvath said. “How did this person know? Oh, somebody sent it to their sister out in California, who then shared it with her niece and then the Carolinas.”
That kind of support is priceless.
“The community to me is just heart and soul,” Horvath said. “I’m a realtor, as well, and I think with the real estate and transferred to here, I 100 percent operate from heart and soul. If there’s no heart and soul and love in it, I don’t want to do it. I only want to surround myself with people that also have heart and soul and mean good.”
DiFilippo said the community fits that description.
“This community has that,” DiFilippo said. “They have heart and soul and they mean good.”
Over the last year, Sandbar Suds has added products to keep its stock fresh.
“We have cuticle oil, I think wax melts might be new from last year, but also, you may have caught them right on the cusp of last year,” DiFilippo said. “Something we do that is actually really cool is a seasonal lip balm. This month is ‘cheesecake kiss.’ We had a hot-buttered rum for fall. We’ve tried to introduce more things that come and go so people don’t get sick of them, and I think it’s working very well.”
The next market the Sandbar Suds crew is looking to break into is candles.
The Birthday Bash was a full-day event with activities for families with entertainment in the evening.
“We had kind of family-friendly, kid-friendly things to do,” DiFilippo said. “We had a foam pit. We had an obstacle course Dr. Dolittle’s Wildlife Rescue came out and they’ve had two skunks and foxes here today. I think they’re actually going to stay for part of the evening, too, which is super cool. We have a food truck all day long, Night of the Living Bread.”
“We have a hard scoop ice cream truck coming for the evening,” DiFilippo continued. “Firehouse Creamery is their name and it’s like a firehouse that decided to do this food truck and we’re so excited for them. I’ve been trying to get an ice cream food truck for just like four years, so I’m pumped about that. We had a band this morning. We had High Horse band this morning and then we have Jimmy Fuller and the Kingpins as an opening act for Whiskey Bound.”
Getting Whiskey Bound to play the event was a milestone for Sandbar Suds.
“Whiskey Bound is probably the biggest band we’ve ever brought here,” DiFilippo said. “We’re super-duper excited for them.”
In honor of the band playing the show, Sandbar Suds even offered a custom product.
“We actually went so far as to do a custom-pour soap for them called Whiskey Bound,” DiFilippo said. “We only made two loaves, and they’re only available (during the Birthday Bash) and then you can’t get them again. That was a cool concept. We’re already more than halfway sold out. It’s cool and people seem to really like that. I had quite a few people come in and be like, “I’m here just for the special soap, thank you, bye!’ That’s cool to see.”
As always, DiFilippo is grateful to the community.
“Thank you to our community,” DiFilippo said. “Thank you for always coming out, always showing up, even on days where it’s sketchy rain or too hot. You guys show up every single time, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that if I tried. It’s the only reason we’re still here. It’s the only reason I keep throwing concerts. People keep coming. If no one came, I wouldn’t do it.”
“The city has been very easy to work with,” DiFilippo continued. “They return my phone calls. If I miss something, they call me, they talk to me about it. They don’t penalize me for it. They just say, ‘Here’s how you do this. Do this going forward,’ and that’s been huge. The support of the city behind us to even allow us to do these things, because it’s not our park, they have to be willing to let us do this and they close the street and throw these big things. They’ve just been incredible and that is awesome.”
Family is also important in the success of not only Sandbar Suds, but the events it hosts.
“Beyond the community and city, there’s my mom (Horvath), Amber (Kissman), Barb (Simek), our employees, Jeneane (DiFilippo), all of them,” DiFilippo said. “Obviously, we have family that come up from Clarion (Pa.) specifically for this birthday bash, Jackie and Bailey Renninger. They come up and they take a whole week off of work and life and they come help us prep and stay till two in the morning prepping stuff with us.”
“The ringleader of all of this is my dad, David DiFilippo,” DiFilippo continued. “None of it happens without him.”
