Some shoppers are wondering when Melanie Miller plans to paint the new gourmet food store she opened on Main Street.
For everyone's information, she already has, thank you. It's not her problem that many people apparently prefer dreary slate gray to the fresh coat of bright purple she laid on the old building."I just painted it and I'm leaving it that way," said Miller, noting purple was a popular 19th century Victorian color. "And besides, I just like it."
Miller never anticipated the hue of Melanie's Gourmet Gardens would cause a royal stir, especially in a town widely known for a fast-food place called the Purple Turtle. She had hoped people would be talking about the escargot and other specialty items, not the color of her shop.
"The purple thing has gone on since the day I opened. But nobody noticed the building until I painted the building," she said.
Owning a market for gourmet cooks is a dream come true for Miller. After 20 years in the banking business, Miller, 40, quit in 1994 and, along with her husband, Maurcie, began saving money. She searched Utah Valley for store space, finally settling on a vacant, former barbershop at 19 S. Main. She paid cash for the building, gutted it and remodeled the interior to sell imported pastas, spices, cheeses and fresh bread. The couple's life savings is tied up in thebusiness.
"I automated myself out of a job and decided to do what I wanted to do close to home," said the feisty Pleasant Grove resident.
Since opening last May, Miller has been accused of spreading graffiti, humiliated in a public meeting and whispered about up and down stodgy Main Street.
Miller wondered why neighboring business owners insist on parking in front of their stores, leaving no spaces for customers. "Talk about shooting yourself in the foot," she exclaims, noting that the downtown area has trouble attracting business as it is.
Miller called the police department to see what could be done to provide customer parking. The police agreed to place two 30-minute customer-only parking signs in front of her shop.
While the signs were being made, she received permission to paint the notice on the parking spaces. A day or two later, a city crew sandblasted it off. Miller said she was told she would be cited for graffiti. Turns out another downtown merchant complained to the city about the writing on the stalls.
After a good cry, she said, she straightened everything out. The signs showed up the next day.
Miller's shop also was ridiculed in a recent public hearing on the city's proposal to revitalize downtown. A woman commented on its color and then wondered who would pay $3.50 for a loaf of bread, stopping the dialogue only after noticing Miller in the audience.
Fortunately, Mayor Lloyd Ash came to Miller's defense. "I'm the purple man," he said. "My first business in Pleasant Grove was purple." Ash started the Purple Turtle.
The past six months were trying for Miller, and not only because of the negative attention her building gets. Business isn't bustling. Receipts one day totaled a meager $8.
"There's been a lot of days when I sat down and bawled and said, `I'm going to give up,' " Miller said.
Nevertheless, she is sticking it out. The Chamber of Commerce and city economic development officials told Miller that her purple market is exactly the type of specialty shop needed in the new downtown they envision.
"I had no idea it was going to be such an ordeal," she said. "But my customers love it. They're doing what they can to keep me here."