Spice Station Wins Downtown Sacramento's Calling All Dreamers Contest

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A Sacramento entrepreneur will get a helping hand to make her dream business become a reality.

After seven years working for energy corporations, Heather Wong was ready for a change.

"I'm ready and excited to be an entrepreneur, but had you told me this is what I'd be doing two years ago, I would have been shocked," she said.

Wong won the Downtown Sacramento Partnership's Calling All Dreamers contest. Her vision is a store called the Spice Station, where customers can buy hundreds of spices and teas.

"We'll have a whole wall of samples of all of our products," she said. So people can come in; it will be a truly sensory experience."

It's a unique concept Wong and DSP spokeswoman Valerie Mamone-Werder think can work in Sacramento, based on the city's booming farm-to-fork movement.

"Heather stood out because she was not only very passionate about the spice station, but she's also a foodie, and quite frankly she was very ready to hit the ground running," she said.

Wong gets a business startup package worth $100,000. The contest has already kickstarted three other businesses, including Andy's Candy Apothecary, The Dailey Method and Ana Apple. That last one just opened in March.

"We've been going full-steam ahead since then," owner Ana Manzano said. "We literally just took our first day off yesterday."

She's been selling her handmade clothes since 2009, but says winning the contest and opening a brick-and-mortar store has fine-tuned her business sense.

She had some words of encouragement for Wong.

"Just enjoy the ride," she said. "Everyone's behind you."

Wong's location hasn't been finalized yet.

The partnership says the contest will continue as long as sponsors stand behind it.