(Hannah Gunnell/South Indy Connect photo) Sisters Tammy Hanna and Jenny Wensel are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their business, Rustic Root, this month. The two show off the Rose Room, a seating area in their Tea Room of Rustic Root designed around their mother’s china, pictured here in the case behind them.
By HANNAH GUNNELL
Ten years really flew by for sisters Tammy Hanna and Jenny Wensel.
“We sat back and were thinking about it the other day,” Wensel said. “Man, we’ve done a lot.”
Hanna opened the doors of Rustic Root as a gift shop on Beech Grove’s Main Street near the post office Aug. 7, 2015. It wasn’t long before she convinced her sister to come join her. The two have expanded the business tremendously over the last decade, including moving to its existing location at 626 Main Street, opening a tea room, starting a mobile tea room, and most recently, opening an ice cream parlor.
“My husband and I have a towing and recycling center — Hanna’s Wrecker Service in Indianapolis,” Hanna said. “We live in Needham, so Beech Grove is kind of the middle point for me. I used to work at St. Francis before we started the family towing and recovery business. I felt like it’s just got the small-town feel, there’s room for growth here, and it was somewhere I could definitely make an impact.”
Wensel’s background is in food service. She left her job of 23 years to help Hanna make Rustic Root what it is today.
“When we started the gift shop, I worked one day a week so her employee could have a day off,” Wensel said. “Then, when we moved here, I continued helping them.”
“It was ‘Sissy, I need you, I need you!’” Hanna added.
“She was very persistent,” Wensel said. “Then it got to the point where [the restaurant job I had] became corporate and with me being there for so long — I felt like a number at some point. Then one day I heard this voice tell me I needed to go. I needed to go be with [Tammy].”
Wensel put in her two weeks and hasn’t looked back since. In fact, both sisters have been looking forward. Hanna opened the Tea Room of Rustic Root in 2017. The decision to open a tea room specifically came about because it’s a unique, niche business that is set apart from the other businesses in the area.
“She came to me and said, ‘Sissy, we’re going to open up a tea shop,’ and I kind of looked at her like, ‘What do we know about tea?’ She was like, ‘I don’t know, but we’re going to figure it out!’” Wensel said.
The vendor items in both the gift shop and the tea products are Indiana local. Popular vendor items include Martinsville-based Anderscents Candles and Needham-based Sugar Creek Family Farm Honey. Rustic Root serves Empire Tea out of Columbus and Nelson’s Tea out of Indianapolis.
“It’s nice to say that our tea is locally blended, and all our honey is farm-to-table,” Hanna said. “I think that makes a difference with people. They want to know you’re supporting the community.”
The two opened the Traveling Tea Room to be able to take their tea to places outside Beech Grove. This year, Hanna hired an event planner for the mobile tea room, and that employee has already booked over 30 events throughout the summer this year.
“We always said we’d stay simple, just own one building, and not do multiple locations because we felt like you lose what you started when you branch out,” Wensel said.
“And every time we go out with the Traveling Tea Room, we bring people back [to Beech Grove],” Hanna added.
Those who come back to Tea Room at Rustic Root can enjoy one of several seating areas, including the Rose Room, which is built around the pattern on their mother’s china.
Those who return to Rustic Root can also enjoy the newest feature of Hanna and Wensel’s business: Scoop on the Root. The two opened the ice cream parlor in June.
“Our case is a 12-case [of flavors] that we offer daily,” Hanna said. “We’re also getting a soft serve machine, with Flavor Burst, and the closest one that has Flavor Burst is in Greenwood. It’s going to be a good thing, I think, the soft serve.”
It wasn’t long before they started catering ice cream to events, branding this as Scoop on the Move. So far, they’ve catered two events, one for the Beech Grove Chamber of Commerce and one for Beech Grove Police Department’s National Night Out.
Just like everything else within Rustic Root, the ice cream is Indiana locally owned too. Hanna and Wensel serve JB’s Barnyard Ice Cream, based out of Evansville.
“My husband and I drove down there and we tasted it and talked to them, and the most important things to me were that they were local and to support a family-owned and operated business,” Hanna said.
Rustic Root prides itself on Indiana local partnerships, a program they call “Pinky-Up Partners.” These partners include Franklin-based Dolly’s Farm and Farm Girl Mercantile, and Indianapolis-based Pink Ribbon Connection.
“It’s a simple logo on the side of our Traveling Tea Room that says ‘Pinky Partner’ and it has their logo underneath it,” Hanna said. “It basically means that when we do business, we’re thinking of each other first. … We provide scones for Dolly’s Farm for her yoga with goats. We’ve done lots of events with her down there with her. Sometimes it’s just a simple call to say, ‘Hey, I’m struggling with this. How do you do this?’ It’s been really good.”
The business will host its second Vintage Market in September to showcase local artisans with handmade and/or vintage products. There were 23 vendors at last year’s event. Hanna said the biggest goal of the market is to bring people to Main Street.
But prior to that, Hanna and Wensel will celebrate a decade of success with an ice cream social. Finalized plans for that event will be posted to Rustic Root’s Facebook page. More information about the business can be found at www.tearoomofrusticroot.com.
