The Family Business

As a small business co-owner, Oluchi Atulobi ’03 is ready for anything, even COVID-19.

Oluchi Atulobi ’03 leans over a bright blue counter at Riggs Road International Market on a February afternoon, chatting with a customer who has driven all the way from Baltimore to pick up stockfish for a celebration at his home. As Atulobi wraps up the conversation, the door chimes and a woman walks in, asking questions in Spanish about purchasing phone cards. Atulobi responds back in Spanish, one of three languages besides English that she can conversationally speak.

Behind Atulobi are stacks of colorful, vibrant textiles for sale that were acquired by her mother, Ego, who is helping another patron with a purchase in the back of the Hyattsville, Md., store. Atulobi and Ego co-own the store, making Atulobi the third-generation business owner in her family. 

“Some people have their work life, their home life, and their social life. My work and home are mixed together,” she laughs. 

At Riggs Road, the Atulobis mostly sell food, drinks, spices, and other products from Nigeria and its neighboring countries, but also from Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, and some Latin American countries. “We eat a lot of the same things, but they’re prepared differently. A lot of the spices that we use are the same but have different names—that is something I had to learn,” Atulobi explains.

The store is centered in an area with a large West African population. When Nigerian customers walk in, Atulobi welcomes them and points out products they might recognize. “That one’s from home,” she says to a patron. Like the Baltimore customer, many seek out Atulobi’s store because it stocks those hard-to-find ingredients, such as Ukazi leaves, ground egusi (ground melon seeds), or gari (coarse flour made from the cassava root).

Born to Be a Boss
When Ego moved to America in 1978, she wanted to eventually open her own store here. In Nigeria, she had continued a family legacy of business owners, initiated by her own mother’s tobacco business. Years later, when Atulobi finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, Ego convinced her to go in on the store together. 

They opened Riggs Road in 2013, and it was an adjustment for Atulobi, who had other career goals in mind and wanted to get as far away from business as possible because she had been around it her whole life. But she sacrificed in order to help Ego achieve her lifelong dream. Raised in Nigeria, Ego was a born entrepreneur. Atulobi had heard stories of her mother’s businesslike spirit—after school, Ego would harvest fruit trees and cut each orange, mango, or pineapple  just so to make it look appetizing, and then sell it and for profit.

“Anybody can cut an orange, but if you make it decorative, she knew you could sell it for more,” Atulobi says.

From selling fruit as a child to eventually running her own textile store in Nigeria, Ego was born to be a boss—and Atulobi has since grown to enjoy entrepreneurship herself. “I actually kind of love the unpredictability of it,” she admits. 

Essential Operation
With business, Atulobi says, something can always go wrong. They could have dozens of people come in one day and only a handful the next, or an appliance can break unexpectedly. “It’s always the freezer,” Atulobi sighs. The profession takes a special skill set and a unique form of resilience, something she built up during her time at NCS. 

Atulobi has fond memories of her time on the Close. She particularly remembers Lower School music class with Ms. Bixler, 4th grade with Mrs. Hemphill, anime club, Mr. Higley’s physics lab, Latin classes with Dr. Rieger and Magistra Sheeler, and serving as a Cathedral acolyte her senior year. 

But when she encountered tough times at NCS, Altulobi learned to tell herself, “Okay, sometimes stuff is not going to go your way, but you have to get it together and keep going.” NCS taught her how to roll with the punches.

The COVID-19 pandemic threw a particularly difficult curveball at the store. As an essential business, the Atulobis never closed their doors during the shutdown, but their best suppliers were not able to import many of their most popular products. “That’s a huge change in the way you do business,” Atulobi says. 

They pivoted to selling more around-the-house supplies—toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and bleach—all of which flew off the shelves. They installed social distancing stickers on the floor, cleaned and sanitized high-touch surfaces more frequently, and mandated that customers wear masks. Ego reduced her hours and changed her role in the store to reduce her personal risk. Walk-in traffic dwindled at the start of the pandemic, but business picked back up in the summer, and Atulobi is starting to see people she hasn’t seen in months. 

Mother-Daughter Connection
In fact, Atulobi’s favorite thing about the store is the relationships she has with customers. Atulobi is particularly good at small talk, having learned from “the expert” Ego and from her days at NCS. That personable attitude has enabled her and Ego to build a community store, where customers feel comfortable coming in and chatting for a few minutes or hours.

“When I graduated, the expectation was kind of that you’ll be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or investment banker,” says Atulobi. “I think it’s important for NCS students to know that you can do business, or you can act, or you can play sports, or get into politics, or something completely off the beaten path.”

Sometimes, Atulobi muses, she wonders if she should have gone into something steadier. “But then I realize I like this. It’s a way for me to relate to my mom, and I’m learning about her world.”

Following in her mother’s footsteps, Atulobi has big dreams for the store. She hopes to one day open a carry-out restaurant in the back, where Nigerian dishes such as Jollof rice and Ogbono soup are made with ingredients she sells. Her eyes gleam when she talks about it. 

Written by Hannah Rhodes, this story originally appeared in the Winter 2021 edition of NCS Magazine.