Mountain Brook native Billy Angell enjoys running Oak Street Garden Shop in his hometown

Many Americans dream of opening their own business. However, for many entrepreneurs, the reality doesn’t match the dream, at least not for long.

Approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years, 45% fail during the first five years and 65% during the first 10 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not only that, but only 25% of new businesses last 15 years or more.

These stark numbers make it seem all the more miraculous when a retail store like Oak Street Garden Shop in Crestline achieves success. The store is operated by Mountain Brook resident Billy Angell.

Angell and his employees observed the shop’s 30th anniversary in 2020, and the milestone didn’t go uncelebrated in the city.

In November, Mayor Stewart Welch and the City Council presented Angell with a key to the city to commemorate his shop’s long, successful run.

They also recognized the owners of another local institution, Bongiorno Italian Restaurant, which has been open for 33 years.

In January, the council recognized Angell at their regular virtual meeting.

“I feel like I’m extremely lucky to be able to do business, not only in the community I grew up in, but what I would consider to be one of the finest communities in the country,” Angell told members.

“It’s a wonderful community and wonderful customers,” he said.

Angell also praised the city government for the support he’s received. City leaders “bent over backwards to help me get in business” in 1990, he said.

In addition, “the city — every time there has been an issue — has always come to my rescue, so I feel very fortunate there,” Angell said.

His success seems to include other factors, as well.

Angell is well-known in his hometown. His employees are knowledgeable and well-trained, and the shop is known for its customer service.

In addition, Angell possesses good business skills, long years of experience in the plant business and a lifelong love for gardening.

A Mountain Brook native, Angell always helped out in the yard as a kid.

“I grew up having chores,” he said. “We were of an age where you didn’t get your allowance until you cut the grass, and if you wanted spending money you cut grass for other people during the summer.”

Angell attended Mountain Brook High School for one year before going to St. Andrews School in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he graduated in 1970.

He also attended UAB and studied mathematics.

He got his start as a plant professional from C. Beaty Hanna, “a legend in the landscape business” and owner of Landscape Services, Angell said.

“He asked me to live at the nursery while I was in school,” he said. “I took care of all the houseplants out there.”

The early 1970s were the peak of the indoor plant business, and it was “sort of the hippy thing to do to have plants — besides incense and macrame hangers,” Angell recalls.

He later started a retail plant shop for Hanna, called The Garden Shop, in a nursery on U.S.280 used by landscape crews to store plants.

In 1986, he and Hanna moved the retail store, later called Hanna’s Garden Shop, to a new location farther out Highway 280.

Angell was Beaty’s partner in the retail shop but, by 1990, it was time for a change.

“I had benefited tremendously from working for him and with him, but it was time for me to be completely on my own,” Angell said.

He opened Oak Street Garden Shop in 1990 after a conversation with Andrew Scott, who was one of the owners of a parcel that was just a parking lot at the time.

“He approached me with the idea of putting a garden shop here,” Angell said.

The shop opened in the spring of 1990 before Angell was able to build a permanent storefront.

They built “a little flimsy shade house,” put up a tent, used a portable toilet and drew water for irrigation from a restaurant kitchen next door, Angell said.

“It was about as humble a beginning as you can possibly imagine,” he said.

By fall 1990, the shop had a permanent structure, Angell said.

He said that the city manager at the time, Axel Bolvig, was a big help, and that his successor, Sam Gaston, has also been very supportive.

The shop was successful from the beginning, Angell said.

“I think it’s because people knew me,” he said. “I had been in the business for about 15 years. I had grown up in the area and had a lot of customers who would travel out 280.”

The shop now has about seven regular employees, with 15-20 part-timers added during the “fast and furious” Christmas season, Angell said.

However, the busy spring planting season is more profitable than the holiday season, “because it’s spread out over a longer period and you are doing it with your regular staff,” he said.

The staff at Oak Street Garden Shop is critical to its success, Angell said.

“I’ve got great employees that make it easy to run a business, where a lot of times I can do more of the business end of it,” he said. “Just about everybody that works for me participates in buying and displaying.”

The most important thing the shop is known for is the staff’s knowledge of plants, he said.

“Just about everybody who has worked for me or have ever worked for me are gardeners,” he said. “They are not sales people. They work in their own yards and take a lot of pride in how much they know.”

The shop has always had specialists in different areas, as well, such as house plants and annuals and perennials, with Angell’s background including shrubs and trees.

“If you are serious about plants, we’re the place to come to,” he said.

Kris Blevons, who was the shop’s first full-time employee, has worked for Angell for 29 years and still enjoys it.

“We’re a tight-knit, small group,” she said, referring to the staff, and added that the store has a “nice atmosphere.”

When asked about her job title, Blevons said, “Well, you can say manager, but we’re pretty informal. We all wear a lot of hats.”

“The one thing I love about working here is that it’s a real creative outlet,” said Blevons, who was a theatre major in college but has a lifelong interest in gardening. “Even to arrange things in the greenhouse and do cool planters... it’s a lot of fun.”

Oak Street Garden Shops also offers “just incredible customer service,” said City Councilor Billy Pritchard, a customer at the shop who has known Angell since the 1970s.

Pritchard says the shop’s quality of service is similar to that of another Crestline institution, the Piggly Wiggly supermarket.

“There’s a lot of kindness and warmth when you go in there,” said Pritchard’s wife, Allison, a regular customer at Oak Street for 30 years. “It’s just a great place to go to.”

Angell “is one of the nicest men and always wants to help you and give you good advice,” she said.

Blevons and the other staff members are “delightful” and are “so sweet and talented,” she said.

“It’s all about making people feel comfortable,” Angell said. “We might know a lot more, but you don’t want to sit there and show off to the point where you embarrass somebody for not knowing something, so how you tell somebody something is important.”

However, if a customer has a bad experience with a plant, the Oak Street staff will try to help them figure out what went wrong and replace an item if necessary.

“You want success, especially with young people,” he said. “Every time they have success with a plant they want to come back.”

Angell has always encouraged people to plant their own gardens.

“Somebody said when you put a plant in the ground it’s a leap of faith that it’s going to live, but the more you do it, the more you realize it’s not that hard,” he said.

“Experience is without a doubt the best teacher,” he said.

As far as popular items in the store, Angell said that Oak Street specializes in orchids.

Another service that makes the store distinctive is that people can bring in containers for the Oak Street staff to fill with arrangements of plants.

“We also have a lot that are made up and ready to go,” he said. “I think we are probably recognized as the best for putting together combinations of plants in containers, both for indoor and outdoor,” Angell said.

He has seen one big change in the business in recent years.

Young people, with a few exceptions, don’t seem to be gardeners in the same way as a lot of people in the World War II or Boomer generations “where you would buy a plant and plant it yourself,” Angell said.

“Everything over here is driven by landscape and maintenance companies,” he said. “I think it doesn’t provide much opportunity for people to actually get out in the dirt. You see more interest in vegetables and herbs and planting containers.”

However, “the cycle will come back at some point,” he said.

At the time he started Oak Street, “it was at the height of gardening,” Angell said. “Everybody wanted perennial gardens, and everybody worked in their gardens. That’s in a lull right now, but I think it will come back sometime.”

All in all, it has been fun to run a business in Mountain Brook, Angell said.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he said. “I can’t imagine having to sit in an office all day. I’m too much of an outdoor person.”

Angell is also “a really good businessman,” Blevons said. “He’s the one who keeps the lid on the place.”

“He tried to teach me about cash flow and the bottom line, and I just want to make a pretty pot,” she said, laughing.

Angell is also a community fixture at this point, Blevons said.

“Growing up in Mountain Brook, he just has so many people that he knows,” she said. “He’s got a lot of people who love him.”

“Oak Street is more than your local garden shop,” said Suzan Doidge, executive director of the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a place where friends meet to share the news of the day. It’s kind of like ‘Cheers.’ Billy knows your name and often your mother’s name and your grandmother’s name.”

Angell, after 30 years in business, “has known generations of Mountain Brook residents,” Doidge said.

“He absolutely loves this community and all that comes with it,” she said. “He is such a great ambassador of the city.”

Angell still enjoys the business, Blevons said.

“I think he likes that we’re small,” she said. “He came from a large nursery, and this is a good size.”

Angell also enjoys the personal side of the shop, “talking to customers and shooting the breeze with people,” Blevons said.

“I think he likes what he does,” Allison Pritchard said. “I think he likes helping people do things for their yard.”

“I certainly want to slow down, and the quality of employees I have allows me to do that,” Angell said.

And he has another life change on the way. Angell is engaged to be married.

“That will certainly change my life and change it for the better,” he said.

However, he stated that he has no plans to retire.

“I always said I’ll be the last thing planted,” Angell said, laughing. “I can’t imagine not working.”