Meet June Milham & Eric Martin | Small Business Owners

We had the good fortune of connecting with June Milham & Eric Martin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi June Milham & Eric Martin, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
As an independent small business, one thing we do for our community is provide something distinct and unique that just wouldn’t exist otherwise. Something that’s not part of the big box commercial landscape. Something intimate. Something personal.

And it makes a difference.

We’ve been able to showcase local artists in our space and connect them to an appreciative audience. Our artists are able to sell their work, but it’s just as important that they are able to get their art in front of people.

That does something for an artist. And it does something for our community – knowing that this kind of vibrancy and creativity is going on right here at home.

The personal character of an independent small business like ours is something we’ve also seen on display with folks contacting us to plan marriage proposals in our café. This doesn’t happen every day, but it’s happened a number of times. They met here. They want to take that big step here. Our space is very much a part of their personal story.

It’s a blessing to get to contribute to people’s stories like that. To be a part of something. Because that’s what community is. But without independent and personal spaces that kind of community doesn’t get a chance to flourish. So, our role is something we don’t take for granted. We cherish it.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We are a pair of teachers. We worked together at the local high school and one day decided to step way from education to embark on a journey of caffeination.

It was a big leap. The kind of leap that small business owners and entrepreneurs can relate to directly, but the scope of the shift was something that took a long time to realize. You know, you start out with a vision. You start out looking to bring something off. You think you’re ready to do something “on your own.” But you find yourself swept up in a process that involves a lot of other people. You realize that you’re dependent on a whole set of other people – vendors, staff, even policy makers.

It’s eye-opening.

The vision remains. But it naturally turns from Dream to Work. You recognize that navigating certain forms of interdependency is part of the work. That is how it has to be. And it’s a good thing. But until you’ve gone through that development and that process, you can’t know how much your project is going to depend on other people.

For us, we have come to embrace that element of business ownership. One of the local bakeries we partner with is run by a former staffer who we watched start her own business. We were her first account. And that is part of the history of who we are. It’s really a nice marker of this particular kind of evolution into a business that exists with – and because of – other people’s visions too.

We are where we are today because we learned that our project is something bigger than us.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We’re located in the Antelope Valley where there are a lot of great outdoor things to do. Devil’s Punchbowl and the California Poppy Preserve are both great spots to visit. We’d also send visitors to some of our local breweries like Bravery Brewing and Lucky Luke’s. They’re bringing out great ideas and great events all the time.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We’ve love to give a shoutout to two of the small businesses that we are intrinsically connected to – Bake Up pastries and Lemon Leaf. These folks provide us with delicious pastries and we feel we’re all part of a symbiotic whole. Linked together and better off for it.

We’d also like to shoutout our neighborhood – Quartz Hill – which is a corridor of small businesses that were challenged by the COVID pandemic but look to be coming through on the other side.

Website: http://sagebrush-cafe.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sagebrush_cafe/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sagebrush-Cafe-74514928748

Image Credits
June Milham Hannah Johnson