Page 7 - BusinessWest July 7, 2021

“That notion of making the other person feel that the idea is theirs is right out of How to Make Friends — it’s a chapter,” Lowry told BusinessWest, adding that positive reinforcement is just one of the principles he focuses on not only in the classroom, but in his business. You might say he practices what he teaches.
All of which has helped him take Bueno Y Sano from that sin- gle store he started with in Amherst back in 1995 to what could be called a chain.
There are now locations that he owns in Amherst, Northamp- ton, South Deerfield, and West Springfield. There is also a loca- tion in South Burlington, Vt., managed by Lowry’s brother, Will; another in Springfield owned by a business partner; and a store in Acton, Mass., owned by Lowry’s stepbrother.
It’s a thriving enterprise — one that actually managed to increase sales at some of its locations during the pandemic — that keeps Lowry busy enough so that he’s unsure if and to what degree there will be more expansion.
The West Springfield location in the Riverdale Shops is one of the later additions to the growing portfolio of Bueno Y Sano locations in Western Mass. and beyond.
“Those things tend to pop up out of nowhere — it’s an organic thing,” he explained, adding that there are ongoing discussions about another location in the Acton area. “We’re not in a rush to have a big company at all. We have enough restaurants; we might
“Back then, the food at UMass was terrible. Most universities were already off to
the races, but UMass was still stuck with food that wasn’t that great. So everyone was starving.”
have more, we might not.” These days, Lowry spends his
time “troubleshooting,” as he put it.
That’s how he described the practice of driving back and forth between locations, talking with staff, dealing with problems and issues that may arise, and, yes, coming up with ideas that go
on a list, one that now resides in his briefcase and not in his back pocket.
He’s still giving employees credit for the ideas that he had already written down on his list, and that’s one of many reasons he’s quite content with a per- sonal and professional life that meets a basic requirement he set a long time ago — working for
himself rather than someone else.
“I knew I did not want to work for a company — it was deep
within me ... I just knew that wasn’t going to be fun for me,” he recalled. “I might have been wrong — I’m sure there are jobs out
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BusinessWest FEATURE JULY 7, 2021 7