The three businesses Greg Dixon Jr. launched when he bought a commercial building in Alton Park in 2019 are an investment in his family's future - and a tribute to its past.
"My granny, I named it after her," said Dixon, who is the grandson of the late Elizabeth Dixon, a fierce advocate for her community in the decades she lived in McCallie Homes and then, after the demolition of the city's largest public housing development nearly 20 years ago, the Villages at Alton Park.
In May 2019, Dixon bought the building at 107 W. 38th St., and a multi- generational team of Dixons and their extended family renovated it through the summer, putting in new flooring and walls and fixtures to prep the space for their stores.
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"I loved my granny, she was my everything, and I hate she passed and didn't get to see this," said Dixon, whose grandmother died in 2008 at age 79. "I miss her. I know she's proud of me."
Dixon runs MayNell's Restaurant - named for his mother Mary Nell Dixon - while his son, Greg Dixon III, runs the Legacy Barbershop. Dixon's sister, Crystal Dixon Crawford, operates Ki-Bre Accessories, a clothing and accessories store she started in her home a decade ago and named for her two daughters.
Crawford started her business as a sideline to her full-time job caring for people with mental disabilities, and eventually began selling accessories at a nearby flea market. She was hurt on her full-time job around the time her brother bought the building in their neighborhood, and she decided it was time to pursue the store and expand the business.
"When I got hurt and was able to start doing this 100%, it grew," Crawford said. "This summer I started selling clothes. The mall is so far out of the way."
Social media and word of mouth have helped her grow the shop, and she asks her daughters, who are 31 and 27, for their opinions on the clothes she buys and stocks.
"I love it, I've got a passion for it," she said. "I love my customers, helping them match the barrettes to the socks to the outfit."
Members of the Dixon family - including Greg Sr. and Mary Nell- are in and out of each other's stores all day long, helping run errands and handle tasks, often with grandbabies or great-grandbabies in tow.
"It's a family thing, all of it," said Greg Dixon Sr., the son of Elizabeth Dixon. "We see each other every day."
In addition to running Legacy Barbershop, Greg Dixon III mentors students who live in Alton Park and attend Chattanooga Prep, a charter school for boys from urban and underserved communities.
"I grew up right here in the neighborhood," Greg Dixon III said. "I want to be an inspiration to the people I grew up with and the people around me."
Greg Dixon III played basketball for Lookout Valley High School, and went to Middle Tennessee State University to play there, but was sidelined by injuries. He came home and attended Chattanooga State Community College to become a master barber. He dreamed of owning his own shop, and that led his father, who had a long career in construction and experience flipping houses, to invest in the building.
"My father put it in motion when I told him what I was trying to do," Greg Dixon III said. "My dream was to have my own business."
The pandemic has delivered a blow to the businesses, slowing them down just as they were beginning to thrive, said Greg Dixon Jr. But the family will work together and persist, he added, and they'll eventually hang the sign they have in storage that officially names the building for his grandmother.
"I'm trying to create jobs for the community," Greg Dixon Jr. said. "I'm just trying to get something started."
Contact Mary Fortune at mfortune@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maryfortune.