In just a half-hour span on a mid-day afternoon, Brij Patel darts around the Sprayberry Bottle Shop filling a variety of roles, almost seamlessly:
Speaking with vendors as marketing manager, checking out customers intermittently and surveying the merchandise in the store his family has grown into a community favorite.
Now 36, Patel has spent the majority of his life at the small box standalone building at 2692 Sandy Plains Road at Kinjac Drive.
He was a teenager when his parents sent him and his older sister to America from his native Kenya to stay with a family friend while they obtained work visas to follow them.
Like many an immigrants’ path, the Patels saw a familiar opportunity as a gateway into a upwardly mobile life in America:
Buy and build up a small business as a way for their children to have an easier time.
For Patel, however, the Sprayberry Bottle Shop is more than just a place that enabled his family’s aspirations to be realized. After 20 years in business, it’s become a way of life for him, too.
“We just fell in love with the business and the community,” Patel said. “Everyone [who comes to the store] almost knows everyone else now. This is pretty much all we have.”
Two decades later, the store is poised for new opportunities to thrive. It sits at what had been planned as the entrance for the redevelopment of the blighted Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center.
The shop’s parking lot, in fact, was split by the road leading to the now-razed retail center.
As the zoning case worked its way through Cobb planning circles, Patel retained an attorney, but negotiations broke off with the developer, Atlantic Residential, to create an entrance solution that worked for all parties.
Patel said all he wanted was for the back part of his lot closed off to cut-through traffic.
But grocery chain Lidl, which was to have been the anchor of the new mixed-use development, pulled out, concerned that traffic access would be difficult.
What Cobb commissioners approved last year is a mix instead of senior apartments, townhomes and a small amount of retail and restaurant space.
A fence has gone up at the back of the Sprayberry Bottle Shop as demolition of Sprayberry Crossing is completed. Patel said eventually a permanent barrier will be erected there.
The tentative entrance to the new development will be right-in and right-out for northbound traffic on Sandy Plains, but Patel said he hasn’t seen any further details.
While he’s glad the cut-through traffic is gone, the construction site also has cut off access from Post Oak Tritt Road and East Piedmont Road.
Patel said those are routes used by a good number of his customers.
“It’s been a bit of a business loss,” he admitted. “It’s gotten slower.”
But he’s optimistic that the redeveloped area behind his store “is going to be awesome for everyone.”
The redevelopment comes after more than two years of business challenges for the Sprayberry Bottle Shop.
While the shop never closed as the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the stress and strain of labor and supply chain issues eventually took a toll.
Patel’s clever and upbeat updates on the store’s Facebook page (which has nearly 10,000 followers) on occasion included notices of the store closing for a couple of days, just to give everyone some time off.
Social media pushes and word-of-mouth referrals from customers are “100 percent” how the store does its marketing.
Surrounded by five warehouse liquor stores within a small radius, Patel said special events are another way to give the shop some visibility.
Those events include auctioning off a rare bottle of Bourbon for $1,600 for a cancer charity. Patel estimates the store has helped raise $20,000-$30,000 over the years in community give-backs.
As the store marked its 20th anniversary on July 1, Patel penned a heartfelt message, detailing not only his family’s journey, but expressing gratitude.
“To see how much love our community has shown us over the years, leaves me speechless to this day,” he wrote. “I will keep pushing harder, and give back whenever I can and I will become the best game player on our team.
“I wouldn’t change a thing about anything today as I wouldn’t have 20 years ago. To growth, to positive energy, to great friendships in this beautiful world.”
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