Originally posted with Tahoe.com, written by Kathryn Reed

Dreams do come true. Just ask Julie Liddicoat and Brandon Hibbs.

After her first trip to Lake Tahoe last summer, Julie fell in love with the area. It’s a story many locals share: One visit and you start plotting how to move to the mountains.

At the time Julie and Brandon, who had been happily running a Grocery Outlet in San Diego for three years, joked about what it would be like to own a Grocery Outlet somewhere at Lake Tahoe. They were not really thinking it would become a reality – at least not anytime soon. Turnover at locations in the greater Lake Tahoe area is rare.

When the Incline Village Grocery Outlet went on the market in 2024, they knew they had to check it out. And suddenly their wish to move to the mountains was becoming a reality. Now they are even happier living in Incline Village just minutes from the Grocery Outlet they own and operate.

“We fell in love with the small-town feel,” Brandon says. “I feel like everyone knows each other. Being from a big city, this really appeals to us to be in a tight-knit community.”

Prior to their foray into the grocery store business, Julie had been in retail for about 16 years, with 13 years at Walmart, including going through the conglomerate’s management training. Brandon spent the bulk of his early career working as a caddy for six months, traveling throughout the world for six months then repeating that scenario.

He’s been to every continent except Europe.

It was at the urging of Julie’s sister-in-law, who owns a Grocery Outlet, aka GO, that the couple took the leap to acquire their first store. Now they are hooked on these stores.

In a world of big-box grocery stores, Grocery Outlet is the antithesis. There is great autonomy in the GO world for owners because they have a corporate partner who does not dictate what they sell or where merchandise is located.

“This model is so unique and interesting,” Julie says. “You are responsible for your own success.”

Since last December, the duo has been the hands-on owners of the Incline Village Grocery Outlet. It didn’t take long before they were greeting customers by name, incorporating local products like bread from Truckee Sourdough Company and ensuring the shelves were stocked to accommodate the fluctuating summer crowds and run on goods before a winter storm hits.

Regular shoppers at the Incline Village Grocery Outlet will get to know Birdie, Julie and Brandon’s German shorthaired pointer, who has a bed in the office. She, like her parents, is having no trouble ad justing to four seasons even though all three were used to the climates of Florida and San Diego before moving to Tahoe.

Birdie loves her winter cold plunges into the lake – and so does Brandon, who’s an avid golfer, hiker, climber and skier. Julie is also embracing the water, the beach and paddleboarding in particular. Learning to snow ski is on her to-do list.

All three like that there are plenty of outdoor places to explore and that people are friendly and welcoming.

While customers understand that Grocery Outlet deliveries might be delayed because of weather or road closures, that is something Julie and Brandon have had to adjust to. They are also dialing in on what to stock. With fewer shopping options in this small Nevada town, Grocery Outlet for many people is more than a place to shop for food items.

“Health, beauty and general merchandise sales are more prominent at this Grocery Outlet location because there are fewer retailers here,” Julie says. “The market isn’t saturated like it was in Southern California.”

The amount of bedding and clothing sales have been a surprise to them. These are items the Incline GO will keep ordering to meet the demands of customers. Specialty health foods are another popular item in Incline.

“It’s interesting how much more volume we have with produce here,” Julie says, again reflecting it back to a different level of competition in a small town versus a city. Everything about a small town is what the couple is embracing. While the first few months of taking over the Incline Village store were about getting settled, putting a team of employees together and figuring out how much of what to order when, it’s the people – the workers and the customers – who keep them coming to work every day.

It’s about being part of a community – something more than themselves, being something other than business owners.

As Julie and Brandon continue to fine-tune the Incline GO operations, you’ll find them out in the community more, being involved in activities, embracing all that the area has to offer and putting down roots in their adopted hometown.

(775) 636-7745
NorthTahoeGroceryOutlets.com
770 Mays Boulevard, Ste 2, Incline Village

Originally Published in LIVE.WORK.PLAY Magazine. Written By: Kayla Anderson

The warm natural atmosphere with soothing color tones, green thriving plants, and a trickling water fountain is a nice contrast to the stormy weather outside, as Emily Allina sits in a bright office waiting for her next appointment. 

Allina moved to Incline Village in September of 2021 and started a mobile urgent care practice that November. In the early days of the pandemic, she went to Kings Beach to take an advanced wilderness life support class. A friend suggested that Allina should consider practicing medicine on the Nevada side of the lake because there was a need for her kind of specialized health services…especially during covid. (She still treats people dealing with long covid symptoms.)

“It was busy and a big focus for a while,” Allina says. She holds a master’s degree in nursing and has more than 23 years of experience working as a nurse practitioner, in settings such as the ER and critical care transport. When Allina moved here, she wanted to start her own business but didn’t want to take on too much overhead, so she offered mobile care mainly to suss out the need in the community and build up her clientele. Allina also wanted to get more into wellness offerings, and didn’t require a lot of equipment to provide her types of services. Her specialties include emergency medicine, urgent care, integrative & longevity medicine, and regenerative medicine.

In February of 2024, Allina opened a brick-and-mortar office on 923 Tahoe Boulevard, Ste. 100. 

“It’s so nice to have a space for patients to come here,” Allina says about High Sierra Restorative Health, which also has lab services now. 

When asked what the most popular service is, Allina says that a lot of people—both men and women—are seeking out hormone replacement therapy. Peptide therapies, hormone balancing, and regenerative therapies can help with weight loss, thyroid function, cortisone issues, brain health, restorative sleep, and more. There are also plenty of people who look for that episodic care– like treating a UTI or ear infection—who would rather go to her than anyone else in town. 

However, her favorite kind of patient/client is one who takes a proactive approach to their health.

“I like to focus on getting people healthy and then maintaining that longevity,” Allina says. “The earlier you start to investigate your baseline health and optimize it, the better chance you have to prevent chronic, more serious diseases in the future.” She explains that it helps to make sure that: 1) your gut health is good; and 2) your endocrine system/hormonal health is good. 

“Those two systems are upstream of everything else,” she says. “It can seem overwhelming to tackle everything in your body at once, so focusing on those two systems are good to optimize first,” she says. Allina also enjoys practicing health and wellness in Nevada, which is quite different from working in a general hospital ER.

“Here I get to establish a relationship with patients and get to follow through with them. ER is episodic, you treat patients for a specific thing and then they’re gone. You don’t get any kind of closure,” she adds. 

“Here it’s a journey… I get to see if what I’m doing is working and it helps inform the practice,” Allina says. Plus, getting the opportunity to create a more personal relationship with people helps her tailor treatments to their individual needs. 

“I really like the community, and all the patients are great. This really is a wonderful place to live, work, and play,” she says with a wink. “I love helping people who are invested in their health.”

If people are interested in her services but don’t know where to start, the High Sierra Restorative Health website is a good resource. Allina also offers free 20-minute discovery phone calls, available to book online. 

“I want to continue to grow, offer cutting-edge treatments and maybe bring in another provider,” Allina says about her goals. 

“Healthcare is a science and an art. We look at each person individually. We know scientifically what should work but the art is that there’s no one like you. So, you have to pivot, have to adapt sometimes to treatments because each person is unique. Medicine requires a more personalized approach and frequent visits. That’s the benefit of coming here.” 

For more information about High Sierra Restorative Health, visit https://restorativehealthnv.com/. 

Originally Published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, 1/7/2025, Submitted

Incline Property Management has earned accreditation from the National Home Watch Association. The NHWA was formed in 2009 in order to establish and maintain the highest industry standards for Home Watch and absentee homeowner services throughout the United States and Canada (http://www.nationalhomewatchassociation.org). Home Watch is a visual inspection of a home or property, looking for obvious issues, which means that it is a service that “keeps an eye on things” at your vacation or primary home while you are not in residence. All principals of NHWA Accredited Member companies are background-checked, insured, and bonded.

Lawrence Wodarski has been the owner and president of Incline Property Management since 2009. He spent time in the public sector as a District Director of the U.S. Small Business Administration and in the private sector as president of a national non-bank lender and then managing director of a start-up lending venture in the United Kingdom. So, Larry was anxious to use his experience to accelerate the growth of this community-based business that had so much potential.

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As we close out 2024, we proudly celebrate our thirty-year anniversary. This remarkable milestone reflects three decades of evolution in media. From the advent of the internet, through the growth of traditional and digital media silos, to the convergence of integrated media channels that provide both offline and online opportunities, EXL Media has been there every step of the way, guiding successful campaigns for our clients and agency partners.
 
Our loyal clients, dedicated vendors, and incredible team have each played an integral role in our success. Your trust, collaboration, and expertise have been the foundation of our journey, and we want to thank you for making this an incredible ride. 

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Originally Published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, 12/6/2024, Written by Brenna O’Boyle

When Will and Ashley Wolford decided to create Iron and Wood, they solved a problem that has long frustrated Tahoe golfers. The problem is the short golf season in snow country. 

“I saw this gap in town that there was no winter golf,” Ashely explained. “It just really didn’t exist here. They used to have one in the bowling alley in the 90s, and it was popular. But, of course, the technology wasn’t as good as it is now.” 

Local courses only stay open half the year because of the elements. Will said that this helped inspire their 800-square-foot indoor golf facility.

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