AUSTIN, Texas -- As Austin continues to evolve, local businesses are tasked with adapting to try and keep up.
- Callahan’s General Store located on Highway 183
- Store surrounded by construction
For one store, it is battling not only people's ever-changing shopping habits, but trying to do so while dealing with construction that makes the business less accessible.
"Time and again we hear from customers as well as others who say, ‘We come to Callahan’s because we know it has what we are looking for and it has maybe what we are not looking for.’," said Charley Wilson, Callahan’s General Store President, CEO and General Manager.
The store was designed to serve farmers and ranchers to the south and east, but neither the store nor any other business was designed to handle all of the construction that Callahan’s has outside its front door.
“Austin has grown up around us and it has created a need to change,” said Wilson.
Callahan’s General Store is located on Highway 183 in the heart of a seemingly endless construction zone, making the store a bit tougher to access.
“You could look out from our front step and say, ‘Are they going to come in here?’ because that looks pretty harrowing out there,” said Wilson.
But amidst all the growth, Callahan’s has maintained by looking at things from a different perspective.
“I turned my back to the road and looked at the store and I thought, ‘There is a world of opportunity here.’ The traffic we cannot control but what we can control is what is on this property and what we can do to help support our customers and the community that we live in. Yes, there is disruption all around us, including the traffic. But in some point in time that is going to subside in a way that it is going to make it much easier for everyone to get us than ever before,” said Wilson.
