Biz Buzz: Salsa business heats up for Richmond banker

You would think the worlds of high-stakes financial markets and selling salsa wouldn't have a lot in common.

But in one man's life, the two are interchangeable.

Ernie Dettbarn is a senior vice president of fixed income at BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond. He also is the president of Ernie's Epic Foods, a company that makes salsas.

Dettbarn began making the salsa about 25 years ago for family and friends. He also took batches in to work.

"People who tasted it always told me I should charge for it," he said.

Dettbarn ignored the advice.

But last November, his wife took a couple of jars to work. She took orders for 12.

Then BB&T decided to give jars of his salsa as Christmas gifts to clients. In all, the financial company gave away 182 two-jar boxes of the salsa.

Ernie's Epic Foods was born.

Since Dettbarn reluctantly went into business late last year, he has hired a manufacturer in Virginia Beach to produce the salsa. It comes in two flavors, peach and original.

He has been able to get Ernie's Epic Foods placed in Good Foods Grocery, in all Ukrop's Super Markets and at Ellwood Thompson's Local Market.

Dettbarn also has broken in with regional chain Harris Teeter, which stocks the salsas at its Northern Virginia stores and has plans to begin carrying it at all its 181 stores in the next several months. Whole Foods is expected to begin stocking the salsa by the end of the summer at all its stores nationally, he says.

But despite selling nearly 10,000 jars since starting in November, sales aren't high enough for him to quit his day job just yet.

"The key is volume," Dettbarn said. "There's not a whole lot of profit on small amounts."

To create that volume, Dettbarn can be found after work most days at a local grocery store with jars of salsa spread out across the table he keeps in his car.

"I tell people all the time, all you got to do is taste it," Dettbarn said. "You'll buy it once you do."

Minerva Books closing

Minerva Books in Petersburg will close.

The bookstore, which opened about 14 months ago, is in the midst of a going-out-of-business sale and will shut Aug. 15.

"I had set in place a series of benchmarks that would help me assess whether this business could be viable. After I steamed by all of them, headed downhill, I figured it was time to try something else," owner Kristy Bell wrote in an e-mail last week.

Bell was a lieutenant in the Navy when she quit to open the store, which is off the main drag in Old Towne Petersburg, down Bartow Alley off Bank Street.

Bell also is offering to sell inventory, fixtures and furniture to anyone interested in opening a bookstore.

"I believe, with the influx of new people, a new location with more visibility and Petersburg's long-term commitment to the continued development of the downtown, that this business can be viable," she wrote on her Web site.

Short Pump happenings

Short Pump Town Center in western Henrico County will add two stores and a restaurant during the next several months:

• Fast-Fix Jewelry & Watch Repair is scheduled to open within the next 60 days. The shop will be on the lower level next to Nordstrom. The chain has 150 franchised locations in the U.S. and Canada, including two stores in Northern Virginia.

• Teavana will open in the fall on the lower level near Janie & Jack. Teavana is a chain of teas store. The company has more than 90 stores in 31 states, including three in Virginia -- two in Northern Virginia and one in Fredericksburg.

• An upscale Indian restaurant, is scheduled to open late this year. It will be in newly built space on the lower level, next to Dick's Sporting Goods and the newly opened Hotel Sierra.

Azitra is the Raleigh, N.C.-based chain that plans to open here. It operates an Azitra restaurant in North Carolina and three restaurants in Virginia under the name Nawab in Williamsburg, Virginia Beach and Newport News.

The company has not decided what the name will be on the local restaurant.

Toy store closing

The South Pole Toy Store on Grove Avenue is closing -- for now.

Owner Tom Lind said he is scheduled to vacate the store by the end of the month but could stay on until the end of August if the landlord doesn't find a new tenant.

Lind is not renewing the lease on the store, which is near Libbie Avenue.

But though the store is shutting down, South Pole will live on, Lind said. He will continue to do business online while looking for a new location.

"I prefer something with a little more traffic," he said.

Lind hopes to open the new store before the Christmas holiday or early next year.

Contact Louis Llovio at (804) 649-6348 or .