Maynard James & Jen Keenan
Maynard James and Jen Keenan are the co-owners and operators of Cottonwood’s Queen B Vinyl Café. The duo met through work sometime in 2003 or 2004 and shared a love for the food and beverage industry that has kept them together through the decades. The Keenans are also behind Merkin Vineyards. What sparked their interest in the industry? “Just the combination of wine and food and how it goes together,” says Maynard. Cottonwood’s Queen B Vinyl Café is one unique spot. It started out as a store for Maynard’s band, Puscifer. The reason for this was practical: To have the band’s record sales count for SoundScan for Billboard, the store had to stock other records as well, explained Maynard. Today, Queen B – named after a Puscifer song – is not only a record store, but also a café, coffee shop, a ramen shop, a barbershop, a live music venue and a coffee club. Coffee is roasted on site. “It just escalated from there,” says Maynard. “It became her full on project of buying and stocking new and used vinyl, and now to the point where we actually have bands performing in the space. And she’s now actually recording the live performances. She set up a YouTube channel.”
Maynard James & Jen Keenan. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
Although a combined café and music store might not seem like an obvious pairing, to Jen, it made a whole lot of sense. “I feel like how wine and food go together, music just brings people together,” says Jen. “Music plus live events, it brings people together. This area doesn’t have a lot to offer younger people, and I felt like that’s also very important for the community to have a place to go.” Jen strives to make all her guests – both out of towners and locals – feel right at home. “I just want them to feel welcome,” says Jen. No matter what you wear … just come as you are.” The record collection is as eclectic as the shop itself. Queen B’s specialty is hard-to-find obscure items by mostly smaller bands. Being our Power Couples issue, we had to ask about what they feel makes them such great partners in life and business.
Maynard James & Jen Keenan. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
“Well, she knows that I’m an idiot, and she’s patient,” says Maynard, jokingly. Jen followed that up with: “We have a lot of different projects. We’re not necessarily always working next to each other. We are working together on these projects, but not necessarily in the same room,” says Jen. “We just match,” says Maynard. “There’s no other way to really sum that up. Other than, be there for yourself well enough to understand when the other person shows up that you’re supposed to be with, just recognize that, and then stay out of each other’s way. You’re witnessing each other grow and live.” The couple also supports and acknowledges their separate interests. “We respect that, even though we have a life together, we also have our own interests and our own things that we do. We support those,” says Jen. The couple is dedicated to the community. They also support many philanthropic efforts. They’re very involved with Local First Arizona. Maynard spoke as a thought leader for the group, which promotes local small businesses, back in 2015. The pair has donated money to nonprofits including Blue Watermelon Project, Jerome Humane Society, Verde Valley Sanctuary and One in Ten. Jen is also on the board of directors for Women in Vinyl, a nonprofit dedicated to the art of vinyl. She also supports breast cancer initiatives and is a survivor. She’s spoken at breast cancer fundraisers and even held a live music fundraiser for the Healing Consciousness Foundation in Sedona after receiving treatment. What keeps them going? Watching projects thrive.
Ramen at Queen B Vinyl Café. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
“When you’re executing something, it’s always fantastic to see it manifest right from start to finish, and the rewarding part is watching each other get these projects off the ground and seeing stops along the way as it’s progressing. But really I think the better part is to watch people come in and see that achievement of what we put together and what we set up and curated in a way, to have that resonate with someone who hasn’t really found their home yet,” says Maynard. “They find Queen B Vinyl Cafe and realize that that’s their home.” Queen B is a very fluid space that has changed over time to meet customer needs. The couple feels that adaptability and the ability to pivot and rise to challenges is critical to success. “You can’t not be adaptable, and I feel like she’s tuned into that. She understands that. I understand that, with winemaking, when the grapes show up … There’s no year that’s the same as any other year, right? You have to be adaptable. You have to be willing to bend and react and respond in the moments. Every day we’re going to the cafe. She’s telling me about some different hurdle that’s come up that she has to navigate,” he says. One great example of Queen B’s creativity? Goth prom. “We realized there was a lot of homeschool kids that don’t go to prom. And so they came, and that was their prom,” says Jen. “They all wear black and everything.” Another key to success? Adaptability. “Challenges are minimal. It’s more like management logistics,” says Maynard. “That’s really what it is, is the freedom to explore ideas. And then see, watch them manifest, and then, if they don’t work out, you have to change gears. Right now, she’s being very patient with me to open up the sister store across the street, Queen B Sushi at 816 Main Street.”
Maynard James & Jen Keenan. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
A gin project is also in the works. Maynard says staying within a budget is important when working together, but so is trust. “Most marital stress comes from financial. Don’t dive off a deep cliff with narrowing your focus so much that you’re going to be mad at each other about finances,” he says. “Then trust each other to figure it out.” We had to ask them the most rewarding parts that come from working together. “The achievements. Just watching somebody find their joy and watching her racing and launching the goth prom. She thought it up and executed it and brought people joy,” he says. “Having me tell her years ago, ‘I’m gonna buy this coffee roaster. I’m gonna learn how to roast coffee, and then we’re gonna serve it to people.’ She was like, ‘What?’ And we do it, and the coffee is delicious.”
Mike & Renee Taylor. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
Mike & Renee Taylor
Mike and Renee Taylor, owners of Sedona-based Renee Taylor Galleries, met as graduate students at the University of Arizona in Tucson. They were both majoring in hydrology and water resources. They wed in 1999. Renee started her art gallery in 2000, when Mike was in law school. The couple initially didn’t plan on working together. But back then, it made sense for them to take a chance. “We didn’t have any kids. We had a tiny mortgage and no obligations. And we had day jobs. So we figured, ‘Let’s do this. Try this out, and see where it goes,’” says Mike. The couple attributes their ability to work together in business and in life for 26 years due to their shared personality traits. “I am going to attribute it to our tenacity,” says Renee. “There have been challenges, but we were never going to let them take us down as a couple, or as a business. We worked through them, and every time we worked through another challenge, it made it easier the next time.”
Renee Taylor Galleries. Photo courtesy of Renee Taylor Galleries.
The fact that the couple ended up here was somewhat of a surprise. Despite her passion for the arts, Renee grew up thinking it wasn’t a career path. “I’ve always loved art. I love creating art,” says Renee. “I was basically told that that wasn’t a career, and so I was pushed towards engineering and hard sciences. So, once I did accomplish that, I realized life is short, and why not?” Mike did not plan on being in the arts, but enjoys his chosen career path. “You’re in an environment where you’re making people happy,” he says. “You’re working with both the artists and the people because everyone wants to be there, not because they have to be there.” Despite the joy they feel from seeing art become an important part of people’s lives, there have been challenges. The gallery has had a total of roughly 25 different venues. The business started out in Tucson before relocating to Sedona in 2003. They were both geology majors as undergraduate students, and the city’s red rocks appealed to them. “It just takes time and effort,” says Mike, of building a business. “You have to be able to pick each other up and also kick each other in the butt, and striking that balance is a challenge when you’re married. Because you don’t get to go home and complain to your spouse. Your spouse is your partner.”
Mike & Renee Taylor. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
Renee feels that their success and ability to overcome challenges is also due to their strength and the fact that they support each other. At one point, the couple owned one gallery in Sedona and another in Southern Arizona. For roughly two-and-a-half years, the pair only saw each other in passing. It was hard on their marriage. At the time, their Southern Arizona gallery were doing much better. They eventually closed the Southern Arizona spot to focus on the Sedona location, which was thriving in its new spot in Tlaquepaque Arts & Shopping Village. The decision paid off. They now run three successful Sedona galleries together. “We’ve grown together. We’ve grown this business together for so many years that we were on the same page, and so we can support each other in ways we couldn’t when we were first starting out,” says Renee. “We had too many different ideas about how we should do things. But as we’ve grown, as we’ve gone through these challenges and navigated them together, we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work, and it makes it really easy to be on the same page, and support each other through it. And that is so incredibly valuable.” Like many business owners, COVID was a huge hurdle. “When COVID happened, it was like we really had to be on the same page,” she says. They’ve learned to give each other grace, weather storms and separate the personal from the professional. “That was always our biggest argument was the word ‘failure.’ That was a trigger for me. It was not a failure. We learned. This was a learning experience,” says Renee. “We’ve gone through enough challenging times that now we feel like we can handle pretty much anything that comes our way.” The pair also overcame a disastrous 2009 flood. They had to rip out the floors and replace them. Even with mud on the floor, customers came in. They also have three children. Their third baby was born on the same day when construction started on their home. They also had a meeting about the build out for their jewelry store on that very same day. To accommodate their growing family, the couple started to separate their roles more since they didn’t have time to work on the same projects.
Renee Taylor Galleries. Photo courtesy of Renee Taylor Galleries.
Another key to their success? Their willingness to change or adapt. “The biggest thing we have to do together is be willing to pivot really fast,” says Mike. The pair starts off the day with a daily morning meeting with the team to set the tone for the day. But on any given day, they have to drop one project for another. “Every time we’ve grown, we’ve had to change our structure for our business. How we do what we do, and you know what worked for us 10 years ago, it totally does not work now, and whether it’s personal stuff or work stuff, and structural stuff,” says Mike. “I think the biggest one was omnichannel, integrating our in-store and web presence is one unified front,” says Mike. Other examples they gave us included selling jewelry and changing the name of the gallery. “Always have a learning mentality and always growing and being flexible,” advises Renee. “You’re always gonna have to do a lot of pivoting.” The couple feels confident that they could not have achieved what they have without one another. “You absolutely need a confidant and someone you can sound things off of, and be brutally honest with each other about those ideas, and it’s a challenge,” says Mike. “You have to have someone in your back court that you trust. That will always be there. No matter how much you screwed up or vice versa.”
Mike & Renee Taylor at Renee Taylor Galleries. Photo by Paul Nelson, Cucoloris.
Being our power couples issue, we had to ask them how they would define that term. “To me, it’s somebody who can attack their profession, passion, daily and still have perspective to do other things, be a well-rounded person and is not just super duper successful at one thing,” says Mike. To Renee, a power couple is two people who can achieve more together than they would alone. “It’s two people who’ve gone through challenging times, and they’re more than what they could be by themselves. It’s that synergy that the couple create together,” says Renee. “Synergy is everything.”
