"After I left high school, I went to work as a cashier in a Vancouver parking lot," says Tanya Nahal, owner of Hallowville Manor, a Langley costume store. "I worked there for almost 20 years. I've always loved sewing and crafts and I would sew or knit in the booth while waiting for cars to pass through. I would even show up with power tools and cut wood, or sand my kitchen chairs!"
The response from customers? "They loved it,” she says. “We'd get chatting and they'd buy my knitting or my acrylic paintings. Some people would mention they needed a costume and I'd make one for them. Customers thought it was so awesome that I didn't just sit and read the newspaper all day."
As a teenager, Tanya had a dream of opening a small business of her own. "I thought it would be fun to have a little store where I could sew all day and talk to people,” she explains. “The parking lot job was actually a good beginning, although I didn't know it at the time. It allowed regular customers to get to know me and then they followed me when I opened the store."
