BUFFALO—At 19 years old, J’Dena Dolin knew she wanted to open her own business. The Laverne native married a Buffalo rancher so it seemed natural to set up shop in Buffalo.
Back then she had been going to college while working in Woodward.
Her business started as a flower shop and it lasted six months, Dolin said, when the compressor went out in the flower cooler after providing flowers for a big funeral.
“I changed gears into clothes,” she said. Originally her boutique named The Vintage Longhorn carried the latest fashion trends before segueing into staple pieces that are timeless.
“I was the first clothing store in years in Buffalo,” Dolin proudly said about her 2014 opening.
When her dad passed away, her mom Melissa Burke felt it was time for a change. Burke opened her own business called Rusty Roots in 2017 to sell home décor, candles, and faux florals.
Fast forward a couple years to 2019. A building in downtown Buffalo had been languishing, sitting empty for five years after previously serving as the town’s funeral home, clothing store, and general store when Burke decided to buy it.
She temporarily shut down Rusty Roots that summer while she gutted the building, rewired it, installed a new HVAC unit, and put on a new roof. Burke did all the deconstruction herself to save money and then hired contractor friends to help do labor like lay the flooring.
She spraypainted the building’s original ceiling tiles black rather than their natural creamy color to give it a sharp look.
“I restored it back to the way it used to be,” Burke said. “It had a lot of life left and I brought it back to what it was originally.”
Rusty Roots and The Vintage Longhorn joined forces under one roof that fall.
The mother-daughter duo added a nutrition shop in the back too called The Homie Dog, featuring HerbaLife energy drinks, such as its best-selling teas, smoothies, protein shakes and balls, and more.
“Why not put in our own?” said Dolin, who was pregnant with her first child in 2019 and didn’t want to drive to Woodward to continue getting her favorite drinks.
Dolin now is the mother of three and has been in business for 12 years.
The COVID-19 pandemic made her pause though.
“If it had been just The Vintage Longhorn, I wouldn’t have made it. But the three businesses sharing expenses allowed us to survive,” Dolin said. “Quitting wasn’t an option.”
However, it was hard and nerve-wracking for a while, they commented.
Before the pandemic, they had no problem placing items they wanted for the stores in the online shopping cart, mulling over it, and then going back to it later to order.
After the pandemic, if they didn’t buy items immediately, chances of shoring up inventory were slim.
“The building was empty for months,” Dolin said because they had trouble securing inventory.
Upon recovery, they stocked up for all three businesses, she said, adding “We never let it get empty again.”
The Vintage Longhorn, Rusty Roots, and The Homie Dog all have loyal patrons who come in regularly.
“We have people who drive from all over to come shop,” Dolin said.
At the time of this interview, she and her mother were ramping up for Black Friday, which is their busiest weekend of the year.
They do swag bags for the first 25 in the door with $100 bills for the first five customers; that incentive alone causes some of their faithful to literally camp out on the sidewalk or in their cars on the night of Thanksgiving Day. The line forms before dawn and stretches down the block with as many as 75 to 100 people ready to shop.
The Vintage Longhorn specializes in authentic turquoise handcrafted with sterling silver and Rusty Roots makes silk flower arrangements that have shipped all over the U.S.
“We plan to keep doing what we’re doing,” Dolin said, with Burke adding, “We offer something for everyone.”
The Vintage Longhorn, Rusty Roots, and The Homie Dog, 107 N. Hoy (U.S. 183), are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Go online to shoptvl.com or Facebook.com/vintagelonghorn. Call (580) 334-3617.