Person of the Month: Lisa Richards, B.O.E.

No, Lisa is not a member of the Board of Education. What she is is a Bundle of Energy!

She has been, still is, or is now, a wife, mom, bailiff, barista, bartender, biker, college graduate, paralegal, judicial secretary, long-distance runner, Tipp library trustee, Rotary member, candle and perfume maker, pet lover, and entrepreneur and not necessarily in that order!

Lisa grew up in West Milton and moved to Tipp City, where she finished high school. She started college but left before graduating to be a retail clerk and then a bartender, working many years at numerous establishments in the greater Dayton area, including Tipp City’s Coldwater Cafe. She eventually decided she was “done dabbling in college” and should finish her degree, since she had two kids. So, she returned to college and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing. Leveraging her degree, she did some paralegal work and eventually landed a job, now going on seven years, as a judicial secretary. She supports three judges at the Court of Appeals in Dayton’s Montgomery County Courts Building. Lisa also serves as the court bailiff during trials, opening and closing the court and recording the procedures.

Lisa’s family consists of two daughters, Maya and Laylee, and husband Shawn.  Maya is a Junior at Tipp H.S. and Laylee, who took college courses at Tipp H.S. to earn college credits, is a Junior at Michigan State. You’ll likely find Laylee serving coffee at Chaffee’s Brewhouse this summer.

Speaking of Chaffee’s, it’s a bar, and now a coffee shop, and soon perhaps even more, initially created in the minds of Lisa and Shawn as they talked together not long after they met. Shawn had previously owned a bar, so he had gained knowledge and expertise installing and maintaining beer taps and running the business. Lisa had extensive experience working in bars, but favored a wine bar instead of beer. So together, the newly married couple decided to create Chaffee’s Brewhouse as a friendly gathering place which served both beer and wine. Ironically, the Covid shutdown gave them time to renovate the space which is now Chaffee’s. Lisa continued her “day job” working from home and pitching in to help Shawn whenever possible. Thus, by the time the shutdown ended, Chaffee’s Brewhouse was born as a beer and wine bar.

Although there was a potential customer entrance to Chaffee’s from Main Street, Lisa wanted to keep the bar’s entrance on Second, to draw people from Main and show them there’s more to Tipp City than just Main Street. But that left a vacant storefront on Main, so Shawn suggested that Lisa open a paper shop in the available space, and The Serendipity Paper Co. was the result. Serendipity is the right name. The shop sells stationery items such as greeting cards (from small businesses), journals, and “Tipp City” notebooks, lip balm, laundry sheets and dryer balls, coffee beans used at Chaffee’s (same brand, not same beans), and lots more. Lisa has recently started making and selling her own candles in the shop, using wax from American grown soy and high-grade fragrance oils. Her next step is making solid perfumes, which combined with the candles make up what she calls her “creative outlet”.     

I asked Lisa if she was still running, and she admitted she hadn’t been doing much lately. (I wonder why?) She described how she had started when her two girls were young, running but not competing, then eventually getting into 5K (3.1 miles) races, then 10K (6.2 miles), then a half marathon (13.1 miles), and finally a full marathon (26.2 miles). After that, she thought she’d like to try a 50K race (31.07 miles) and did a few, especially because those races were “typically on trails in local parks, which are really pretty.” Lisa said she’s also done a 12-hour race which was about 50 miles long, but the training for such long races is so involved that “between work, the bar and shop, the girls, and everything, I decided to retire for a little while from racing…but I’m thinking of running again, maybe 3 miles a day for a while.” Lisa also bikes. (no waaaay!)

At that point I asked Lisa if she has time to sleep. She said “yes.” (but I’m not convinced)

Then I asked her, “how in the world do you do everything you do?” She replied, “I have a ton of help,” and credited her “very good employees at Chaffee’s” and especially husband Shawn, who “is the guy behind the scenes, who does a lot. I wouldn’t be able to do all I do without him.” She explained that Shawn is a very good partner. She can bounce ideas off him and work together with him, because there’s a lot of teamwork involved.

“There are things he’s good at, there are things I’m good at, and there are things we do together,” she remarked. For example, serving coffee at Chaffee’s was pretty much Shawn’s idea, she said. She wasn’t initially sure about it, but once he convinced her, she was all in. “People are used to getting coffee downtown, and we’ve got the bar, but a lot of people wouldn’t come in because it is a bar. But we thought, if we have coffee, we’ll have a good community space. And it’s really taken off! So, we serve coffee all day and night.”

Finally, I asked what else she could tell me, and Lisa responded, “Nothing, I’m the most boring person.” This time I’m truly not convinced.