Mike Scheffer has tried everything possible to adapt to the slow gentrification of Sonoma Valley. But no advertising or new merchandising worked as well as the metal menagerie he is now known for.
Pink flamingos, multicolored roosters, winged pigs and a 10-foot dinosaur compel drivers to turn off into Swede’s Feeds to browse among the scrap metal yard art that has become a signature of the familiar highway attraction in Kenwood.
“It’s been at least 15 years since I sold any cow food,” Scheffer allows, taking a load off at the end of the day on a picnic bench, also for sale at Swede’s, along with cute chicken coops, pet food, greeting cards and mulch.
“This used to be a real feed store, he said. “There used to be pasture here and more people with horses. But it’s changed from that to affluent people and grapes.”
Now Scheffer and his life and business partner, Aspen Mayers, sell a bit of everything at their combination pet food store, garden center and gift shop. You can still get chicken feed at Swede’s but you can also get greeting cards, seeds and vegetable starts, tools and all manner of tchotchkes.
A native New Yorker (Long Island), Scheffer made his way to Sonoma County 27 years ago by way of Colorado after a homesick friend extolled the virtues of his hometown of Santa Rosa and said he was going home.
“I visited him and fell in love,” said Scheffer, who turns 60 this year.
He and Mayers, entering their 19th year of business, have seen Highway 12 change from a scenic country route to a busy thoroughfare, with cars constantly whizzing past. Stopping to make a turn, he worried, can be treacherous.
“You don’t know if somebody is going to hit you from behind. I hear from customers who say ‘Why don’t they put in a middle lane?’ Of course, people go faster than the speed limit.”
But it’s not just the noisy traffic but the loss of community, he said, as more of the town’s ordinary family homes have converted to second homes for city dwellers and vacation rentals. He knows of at least four customers who have moved to Santa Rosa recently. Scheffer himself moved to Santa Rosa but still fears what might happen if he loses his rental. He said he has nothing against the part-timers and visitors. But there is little in the valley, he said, for locals.
“There is no vision for anything. It would be nice if you had a coffee shop in town. But it’s all about tasting rooms. Anybody who has lived here for any amount of time just feels like nobody cares about us. I’m sure people felt that in Napa at one time. It’s not about us. It’s about the wine industry. It is what it is.”
Special Coverage: Voices of Sonoma Highway
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