ALTAMONT — Business is looking up in Altamont, as several new small businesses have opened or are preparing to open their doors in the village. They are a café-and-bakery, an insurance agency, and a prosthetics manufacturer.

Fiamma Rieckman had been thinking about opening a café for a long time, she said on a recent blustery afternoon as she arranged fair-trade items for sale on the shelves at 182 Main Street.

A native of New York City, Rieckman, 39, moved to the Capital District five years ago for a job with Cardinal Health, liaising with local hospitals as manager of a pharmaceutical distributor’s program of providing medications for free to patients who cannot afford them.

She turned a downsizing in 2013 into an opportunity.

Rieckman was drawn to Altamont, she said, for its “friendly, homey feel” and its quaint village atmosphere. 

When she toured the space that was most recently used by Desolation Road Studios, she thought it was perfect, particularly when she learned that it had once served as a drugstore. At that point, she had worked in pharmaceuticals for two decades.

“It still had the old scale and everything,” Reickman said. “I’m going to keep it right there,” she said, gesturing toward a vintage balance scale set on a shelf at the center of the store, now part of the decor.

Her plan is to turn the back half of the store into a bakery and café where she will have some organic, vegan, and gluten-free offerings, as well as “all the traditional ones with lots of sugar.” She hopes to open the bakery by the end of February.

The shop is already partly in, and open. The shelves are not yet completely filled, but they are lined with items not commonly available elsewhere, including products from Ghana such as a locally published cookbook, colorful zippered pouches made from recycled plastic water bags, and handmade soft shoes for babies.

The store sells, Rieckman said, fair-trade items; products with a purpose; and work including jewelry, art, and greeting cards by local artisans. Products with a purpose are those that come with a pledge from the manufacturer to make a charitable donation for every item sold. For example, for each bottle of liquid SoapBox Soaps that Rieckman sells, one child will receive a bar of soap, fresh water, or vitamins.

Mountainview Prosthetics remodels

Dennis Cyr of Knox is renovating 124 Maple Ave. with an eye to moving his business called Mountainview Prosthetics into the property.

He currently does his manufacturing in a shop at his home, Cyr said. He told The Enterprise that he bought the property in hopes of creating more of a separation between personal life and his work.

In 2012, the village board voted to expand the zoning code on allowable land use on Maple Avenue to include a medical/dental/optical use. This was done to allow Cyr to run this business in the central village business district.

Mountainview Prosthetics manufactures custom prosthetics for prosthetists and orthotists around the country. It manufactures a range of types including thermoplastics, laminates, and myoelectrics.

Severson Insurance comes home

Between Cyr and Rieckman, at 104 Maple Ave., is the newly opened insurance office called Severson Insurance. This business is both old and new.

It is new to this spot, although the business itself was originally established in 1925 by Millard Severson. It has been in the same family for four generations and is now owned by David E. Cowan and his son Zachary Cowan. David E. Cowan’s mother was Millard Severson’s only child.

Severson Insurance is still, and has been since its inception, a Travelers Insurance representative. It provides auto, home, and business insurance. Zachary Cowan told The Enterprise that Severson recently also became part of the Satellite Agency Network Group, which allows it, Cowan said, to give customers access to over 30 companies across the country; this way, Severson said, the office can provide “the best rates with the best companies.”

The office has had various locations through the years, including in the train station, which is now home to the library. It actually started out, back in 1925, on Maple Avenue.

Cowan and Rieckman have already had opportunity to cooperate on a community project.

They shared a Christmas tree at the Masonic Hall during the Victorian Holiday Celebration in December. One shop owner had bowed out, Rieckman said, “so Zach and I said, ‘Well, we can do it together.’” They decorated the tree with a black-and-white color scheme and their respective shop logos.