/ Business of the Month / The Hiker Box
Business of the Month: March 2023
The Hiker Box
March Business of the Month
Congratulations to
Hiker Box!
PO Box 8 / 117A E Wall Street
Eagle River, WI 54521
Phone: (715) 337-2161
Website: https://www.thehikerbox.com/
We recently had an opportunity to chat with Jessica Allen, Co-Owner of the Hiker Box, along with her husband, Tom Stephens, to learn about the inspiration to start the Hiker Box and the growth of their business into a second location!
Tell us about the Hiker Box and why it was important for you to start your family business.
We opened The Hiker Box in 2014. The shop was our first foray into a retail business and has provided us with an ongoing education in working together and learning about our community. Prior we'd both held jobs in varied spaces ranging from farming to warehouse logistics to computer programming but neither of us had found a passion that kept us in those fields. I’m originally from Chicago and Tom is from Georgia. We vacationed here and developed our love for hiking which blossomed into long distance hiking together. We always felt that the Eagle River community could be served by a hiking and backpacking gear-centric shop.
How many staff do you have now?
We have 4 employees - a full-time store manager and 3 part-time staff. We will add a couple seasonal employees for the summer. We have worked hard to be a good employer and have many summer staffers that have returned for multiple years. We started really small, just Tom full-time with me part-time while holding down another job. We worked longer hours then too. Setting up a good schedule for employees has helped us be kind to ourselves as well.
How have you grown over the years?
We really had no idea the amount of apparel and footwear we'd bring in. We planned to be a gear-only business for camping and backpacking. And that's what the new location at 211 S. Railroad Street is focusing on. The original Wall Street location will continue to carry footwear, clothing, lifestyle goods and other accessories.
How do you give back to the community, and why is this important to you?
We are active in several aspects, giving both our time and other resources to community needs. We each volunteer for multiple downtown events every year as well as working with the Chamber of Commerce, Feed Our Rural Kids (FORK), and Eagle River Revitalization serving as committee and board members. As the community has many fundraising needs we donate goods and services to many individual fundraising efforts on a regular basis.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
We chose Eagle River as a place to make our home. We were literally looking at the whole lower 48 states and trying to make up our minds what would work well for us and the type of shop we wanted to open. Eagle River just felt like it was perfect in so many ways and this great community has reinforced that we made the right choice.
Congratulations to Jessica & Tom and Hiker Box!
