TUCSON, Ariz. — A new culinary experience comes to Tucson where they are making the cooking process a step-by-step experience and allowing customers taste buds to travel around the world.
They have recipe cards displayed that you can pick from and walk around their store to find what ingredients it takes to make the meal.
Seared Living has everything from olive oil, wine, spices, pasta sauce and cheeses that are ready to bring a new style of grocery shopping to the community.
But, this business didn’t magically just appear, it has been a labor of love for seven years.
After visiting Arizona for over a decade, the Erickson’s moved from Montana to Tucson to start this destination market.
The couple used to create business plans for others and finally decided it was time to do it for themselves. But, there was one challenge that they used to their advantage.
“I would say the planning part of it, everybody has a lot of really good ideas of how you are going to implement those ideas and since we come from an engineering background I think that helped a lot because we’ve put a lot of business plans together for big companies— so it was fun seeing a business plan come together for ourselves," said Casey Erickson.
They say the small town feel in a big community is what inspired them to bring business to the desert.
“Tucson is very business friendly, we have had so much support from people that are walking by in the area to people who we talk to throughout town. Everybody is excited about it and they want to be a part of it so Tucson is very much business friendly from our experience," said Tawyna Erickson.
But it wasn’t always an easy thought process, opening a business right now is expensive and getting inventory on time can be uncertain.
The Ericksons say that freight shipping has been the biggest expense costing them well into $10,000. They shared with me that international shipping has been quicker than domestic.
But the unknown hasn’t stopped the couple. They built their business themselves from the ground up in hopes of bringing food and community together.
Seared Living is located at 2870 East Skyline Drive, Suite 170 Tucson, Arizona 85718. Visit their website for more information.
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Brooke Chau is a reporter for KGUN 9. She was a part of Fresno State's newscast, Fresno State Focus and interned at KFSN-ABC30 in Fresno, CA before coming to KGUN 9. Share your story ideas and important issues with Brooke by emailing brooke.chau@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
