Rigmarole Stories

At Rigmarole, we don’t believe in tacky, how-to blogs. We are inspired by entrepreneurs, makers, and innovators.

These are their stories.

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A Seat At The Table With Downing Barber And Barberitos

You won’t find Downing Barber, the eponymous founder of Barberitos, in a sprawling executive suite on the top floor of corporate offices on Milledge Avenue. When you enter the graceful white franchise headquarters, Barber’s office greets you just inside the door. This strategic location means the head of the Southwestern chain

Cheeky Peach: Where Trend-forward Fashion And Southern Hospitality Meet

When Katie Foley-Jacobs founded Cheeky Peach ten years ago, her formula was simple. Her boutique would cater to fashion-forward Athenians, offering them styles hard to find in other local venues. More importantly, her well-heeled clientele would enjoy a shopping experience unlike any other. Fashion as fast as a minute on Madison Avenue,

Keeping Farming In The Local Community: Collective Harvest’s Journey

Where did the food you ate last night come from? Who cultivated the grains and vegetables? Who raised the livestock? For most of human civilization, answering these questions has been simple, because large swathes of the population hunted or farmed. If you didn’t participate in food production, you personally knew

Down To A Science: What Science Guyz Is Doing For Tutoring

Had you told Austin Harris in 2010 that he’d be directing a tutoring company a decade later, he’d have laughed in your face. A career student, he was completing a law degree to complement an earned doctorate in chemistry at the University of Georgia. He was on a trajectory to

From Farm To Table: How The Farmcart Biscuit Is Revitalizing Athens Foodways

The first taste of a Southern biscuit is a revelation. Biscuits here dwarf their Northern counterparts, which uncannily approximate the contours — and sometimes the consistency — of hockey pucks. Gilt with a toasted patina, a warm sea of creamy buttermilk lies just below the cratered surface of a Southern

The Power Of Spaces: How Kelley Bishop Is Transforming Design In Athens

Autumn descends unheralded on the South, turning down the heat and dappling the leaves with color overnight. On a machine gray afternoon, a damp chill haunts the air outside Steel+Plank, where proprietor Kelley Bishop maintains a thriving design studio. Inside, the mood turns meditative and tranquil. Bishop’s aesthetic favors a modern,

Fabricating Dreams with Conner Monda’s Manmade MFG

The call came in late Friday afternoon, just before “Miller Time” at Conner Monda’s Athens studio. When the founder of Manmade picked up, he already knew the ask was going to be demanding. Could he deliver a display-ready set featuring a cutout image and a functional buzzer to a Chicago venue by

Cultural Fare: How Peter Dale Helped Reinvent Athens Food Culture

Eating is natural, but cooking is a cultural activity.  When we transform the raw materials we hunt, forage, and cultivate into fare we share around tables, we engage in a quintessentially human pursuit. Every delicacy you’ve ever consumed originates in this metamorphosis.  Over time, developing foodways, migrations, and exchange networks

Create: How Charlie Mustard And Jittery Joe’s Are Redefining Community Investment

Roasting coffee beans was never a vocation Charlie Mustard contemplated. Then, serendipity intervened. The South Carolina native was sitting inside Jittery Joe’s in the 1990s, crunching numbers for a master’s thesis in nutrition. He overheard the proprietors strategizing about roasting their own coffee beans. A favorite haunt of Athens musicians and students

Stan Mullins: Portrait Of An Artist As An Entrepreneur

In its brief compass, Athens, Georgia represents a portal connecting two worlds, at once old and new. A small town in the Southeastern portion of The United States, so much art and culture has emerged from this region. Pulaski Street, an artery of Broad Street running the length of the

How Jesse Lafian, Spoke, and Aqua-Pin Are Disrupting the Irrigation Industry

“Entrepreneurship is risky. But it’s less risky than what I was doing before,” remarks Jesse Lafian. Talking to the Ithaca native is a good way to demythologize the glossy brochures business schools use to advertise their entrepreneurship programs. Lafian’s path to taking two products to market and patenting a third

James Preston, Transmitting Athens

James Preston was a man searching for answers. The Presidential election had exposed the jagged edges of a deeply polarized America. For Preston, a filmmaker and South Carolina transplant, this chaos in national politics raised fundamental questions about what keeps things from falling apart. What fragile thread holds a local

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