Shaking things up in Muscoda
Located on the Wisconsin River 10 miles or so South of Richland Center, Muscoda is a quaint village of about 1300 people with a nostalgic feel to it. Recently, Akoya Shoemaker decided to ‘shake things up’ a bit, literally.
Shoemaker, Muscoda’s newest entrepreneur, officially opened The Lift Room, located at 112 North Wisconsin Avenue downtown on January 30th. Billed as a place to purchase healthy drink alternatives, The Lift Room features meal replacement shakes and energizing teas, and stresses that all of their products promote feeling well and help towards maintaining a healthy body.
No stranger to the Wisconsin Driftless area, Shoemaker was born in Boscobel and raised in Ithaca. “My grandparents lived here (Muscoda). I spent most of my time here with my grandparents until I was 11 and moved out of the area,” Shoemaker said. “Eventually, after I graduated high school I moved to Pennsylvania, where I met my son's dad and I had him. That was eight, almost nine, years ago now. I then married my husband now when my son was 1 and we had two daughters together. Eventually, we decided we would move back here to be by my family.”
A stay-at-home mom for five years in Pennsylvania, Shoemaker and her husband felt they just didn't have any support. Her husband was working in the oil field. “He was gone all the time. So, we decided that we were going to move here. Well not here, actually we moved up to Eau Claire by my mom first. But ever since I decided to move back to Wisconsin, I had it in the back of my mind that I should really buy my grandparent's house since it was available. We ended up buying an 18-acre lot with a double wide on it. It was kind of a dream for me because it was out in the country and most of my family is here around Muscoda. My husband quit his oilfield job so that he could be home with us, and he actually works at Meister Cheese in town now.”
Shoemaker worked at the prison as a correctional officer for a little while when they moved to Muscoda and stated she loved her job there, but not the hours. Shoemaker felt it was time for a change.
Having been involved with Herbalife products since December 2019, Shoemaker visited a nutrition club, a place people could purchase healthy drinks and socialize with others like minded about what they put in their bodies. “I was like ‘wow this is so cool that they have these places where you can just go and buy stuff instead of having to buy products at home and make everything at home.’ I just thought it was so cool that you could go and try stuff in an actual location.”
Shoemaker’s friend Kelsey actually owns the place now that she visited. “I went in there; I tried a couple of drinks, and I decided that I wanted to order it for at home because it was a lot cheaper if you have it yourself”.
Shoemaker liked the idea so much that she decided she would follow suit. “I decided I would open my own nutrition club. It turned out to be way more than I ever expected. Honestly, I started doing it out of my house. We called it a satellite club. We would deliver to businesses and people would just come to the front door after they called and ordered. I imagined I would have maybe five drinks a day or something, and it turned into about 25 to 30 drinks a day. It was too busy for me. I have three kids and three dogs and I just couldn't keep up at home anymore.”
Shoemaker talked with her husband saying, 'I have to have a commercial location'. So, she contacted Eric, a commercial property owner in Muscoda and eventually met him at a property he owned that had some space above a weight lifting room available. “He told me that he would love to take everything out of this room so that I could build my business back here,” she motioned. The stage was set for her new business.
Shoemaker and her husband along with family and friends began setting the business up on January 1st. “We really put in a lot of work. It was just my husband and me at first and then Eric the building owner helped out. He got everything moved out of the way, but my cousins and aunt helped me paint. We didn't hire anybody. My stepdad came in and he did all of my plumbing for me as a Christmas present. He's an actual plumber. We just decided that we were starting this day and we were opening this day and we have this much time.”
She continued, “I had no idea how to open up a business. I had called every outlet I could think of to figure out who comes in to do the food inspections and luckily, I figured it out. The guy from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture that does the inspections was so helpful.”
Shoemaker settling on the name ‘The Lift Room’, said there were three reasons for the name. “Okay, the first one is because obviously we are above gym. The second reason is because one of my goals in life is to lift up as many people as I can. The third is because we sell lifted teas. Keeping with a wellness theme, Shoemaker shared that her business motto is, ‘You are enough’.
Shaking things up…
The Lift Room serves three drinks using Herbalife products: shakes, teas, and coffees. The shakes can be used as a meal replacement that contain 24 grams of protein and have about 200 calories. This sticks to a muscle building guideline of the 1 to 10 rule, taking in 1 gram of protein for every 10 calories consumed.
Shoemaker explained if your body doesn't consume enough protein when you're weightlifting or working out (or engaged in any strenuous activity), your body actually burns muscle instead of fat. So, if you're getting enough protein, your body will burn fat.
The shakes come in many different flavors: Strawberry Cheesecake, Orange Creamsicle, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Peanut butter Cup, and White Chocolate just to name a few. Their 18 different flavored teas, have around 120 milligrams of caffeine. That exceeds a cup of coffee, but Shoemaker was quick to point out that the caffeine is “a natural caffeine that doesn’t allow your body to go through a crash later on in the day.” The coffees Shoemaker serves may be used as a meal replacement too. Each coffee contains 15 grams of protein, 80 milligrams of caffeine, 2 grams of sugar, and are only 100 calories. Shoemaker said they offer a small menu for kids showcasing teas and shakes.
Shoemaker is happy to be an addition to Muscoda’s business community and feels The Lift Room has an added social benefit. “Like I said, my slogan is ‘where you are enough’. I truly think the mental health of our country is declining right now. When you are quarantining or just left alone for that long I think that, like people are just getting… it's getting out of control. I mean we've seen it in our community where drugs are taking over and I think that people need an outlet. So, I love that most of my customer base are high schoolers. I think they make over 60% of my customer base, and I just love that they have a place to go right now because Muscoda doesn't have very much for them to do, especially right now. They just need something to do, and a place to socialize. They seem appreciative that they have somewhere to go and something to do.” Eventually, Shoemaker will be expanding to include more seating. She aims to continue providing a place where people can hang out, relax, and talk with each other.
Acknowledging it's not an ideal time to open a business right now, she said that December was really hard on her business. “I don't have this as my full-time job, so especially around Christmas time, it got super slow. But truly, if it's going to get bigger after the pandemic, then I'm really excited because it's been pretty amazing this far,” she said with a smile.
I asked her what advice, if any, she had for others thinking of opening up a business during these trying times, she had this to say. “So, I was a stay-at-home mom for five years and I thought that's what I wanted to do. When I saw my friends, opening up their nutrition clubs, I realized that just seems so cool that Herbalife gives you an opportunity to be able to do this. So, I guess, if somebody would want to open up a business during this time, I think that they should. First of all, figure out what they want to do, and go from there. My goals are to help everyone in the community,and build a big enough business to live off of and enjoy what I do. I think that women need to stop worrying about what everybody else wants them to do and start doing what they want to do. Okay, I guess, to put it lightly,” she said with a chuckle.
Visit The Lift Room on Facebook.
