JASPER, Texas — The City of Jasper goal is to revitalize downtown by offering potential business owners financial incentives to move in.
The Jewel Bistro, located at 147 N. Main St., is one new business that took advantage of the opportunity provided by the city.
The owners of Jewel Bistro turned a former boutique into a full service breakfast café. Their dream was to open a business in their hometown of Jasper.
12News spoke with the owners about how they turned their dreams into reality by taking advantage of the incentive from the city.
"That helped tremendously with the process, because we were bringing jobs into Jasper," said owners John and Soloria Davis. "And so, that's what they were interested in, bringing jobs."
They landed on a restaurant that can serve breakfast, lunch and dinner all day.
"They encourage businesses to come and bring their business here, so that they can help the economy," said John and Soloria. "With that, we brought some new jobs."
The owners have brought 30 new jobs to Jasper and say they are happy to have a full service breakfast café in Jasper.
"It's one of the things that's been lacking in this area quite frankly, and having come from, let's say, the Dallas area, you're used to being able to go attend a dozen of those any given time," said customer Chris Lanier. "So, having the Jewel here in Jasper has really been huge for us."
After graduating from Jasper High School in the 1990s, John went off to play in the NFL.
John and his wife Soloria moved back to Jasper two years ago with the goal to open a business in downtown.
"One of the things that we wanted to help do, was bring revitalization to the downtown square," said Soloria.
They received financial incentives from the Jasper Economic Development Corporation to gut their building, which was an old boutique, and transform it into a café.
"The plumbing, the electrical, and the Ansul system, so that helped tremendously with the process," she said.
The 30 new jobs help to employ people like Chauna Tevis, the cafe's general manager.
"It's been awesome, it's fun. I mean, we come to work, we make money and we also have fun while we do it," said Tevis. "We have the most awesome staff ever."
If you have an existing business, the Jasper Development Corporation also offers business owners an improvement incentive.
"And we will fund up to 50% of the project. No more than $10,000. And we've had several entities downtown take advantage of that," said Executive Director of Jasper Economic Development Corporation Eddie Hopkins. "And it has improved the looks of some of our buildings down."
The Jewel Bistro Café grand opening is scheduled for this Saturday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., and will feature vendors, NFL players, portrait artists and more.
The ribbon cutting will take place at 1:30 p.m., and the Chamber of Commerce will be present.
"It's been truly a blessing to buy a building [in] downtown Jasper and to be able to open up a restaurant for the whole community," said John.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.