2 Sisters - Heidi Ochs and Holly Robinett

All Holly Robinett wanted to do was send a few blocks of fudge to school with her children as gifts to their teachers. One recipe and eight years later, 2 Sisters is a thriving, homegrown business run by Holly and her younger sister, Heidi Ochs. Together, the two run their shop, located behind Hobby Lobby, full of homemade spoon fudge and handcrafted baby gifts.

But let’s go back to the beginning, back to when that generic fudge recipe just wasn’t good enough.

“I just wanted to make fudge to give to my kids’ teachers but none of the recipes were good. They were all hard and dry,” says Holly, sitting in the office at a small table, a nook of space between the shop and the kitchen. “I played around with it until it was soft and creamy and spoonable. I shared the recipe with Heidi and she started making it, and she started making other flavors.”

“I was in Ft. Worth as an accountant at the time,” adds Heidi. “I’d take goodies to all my clients and they told me I was in the wrong business.”

While the idea for spoonable fudge was born in Holly’s kitchen, cooking had never been her passion. A seamstress since the 8th grade, she preferred to sew and was known for giving new moms embroidered burp cloths and hand-stitched security blankets, lovingly named Woobies, as gifts. Just as Heidi created a fan base with her edible treats, Holly’s crafts were equally as popular. The sisters had casual conversations about going into business together, but it didn’t feel like a concrete idea until they enjoyed the Fourth of July weekend together in 2008.

“We got together in Norman, Oklahoma, where I was living, and had another conversation about going into business,” says Heidi. “We decided it would just be an internet business and we’d travel around for craft shows. I would make the fudge and Holly would sew and we’d just ship everything from Amarillo and Norman.”

A quick website was pulled together, which Heidi admits was “pitiful,” and they signed up for their first craft show. That, too, was “horrible.”

“We bought little round tins for the fudge, but it was so ridiculous. Have you ever tried to tie a ribbon around a round tin?” laughs Heidi. “We show up to this show in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and it was miserable. There had to have been a cow show that week or something because there were so many flies. We were shooing them the whole time.”

“There were dead flies all over the ground and on our table,” adds Holly. Now the sisters are laughing, sharing those moments of hilarity, the lack of sleep and hours of preparation, late nights and brainstorming packaging ideas. Their creativity paid off, however, when they made a $500 profit.

Holly and Heidi went straight home and put that money to work on their budding business. The following month, they met in Amarillo to do Christmas in October, tripling their sales. By November, Heidi was back in Amarillo with a car full of spoon fudge for Christmas Roundup. Their goal was to sell 100 tins of fudge a day. Instead, they sold 850.

“That whole thing was a big blur. We slept four hours each night because we needed to stay up and make more fudge,” says Heidi. “We got so stupid. Laughing and crying… It was crazy.”

Holly’s handmade baby gifts were a hit, too, but the problem continued to be geography. With Heidi, her husband and their four children still living in Oklahoma, and Holly, her husband and their own four children in Amarillo, it was hard to keep up the momentum. This meant it was time to answer the big question: Go for it or call it quits?

“I told Heidi, ‘You’re either moving to Amarillo or I’m done with this,’ because the fudge was just taking off and I hate to cook,” says Holly. “I needed her here.”

“We knew it wasn’t the original plan,” adds Heidi, “but it was either now or never.”

By the beginning of 2009, with the Ochs family in Amarillo, 2 Sisters was soon a fast-growing word-of-mouth business, and after securing the perfect location for a store, they readied themselves for a June opening. With fixtures from the former Kitchen Gallery, a brand new commercial kitchen, and a splattering of bright green and pink paint, the shop opened with shelves of fudge and racks of Woobies.

“It was scary because once you have overhead, it all changes. That picture,” says Holly, choking back tears, pointing to a black and white framed photo of her and her sister on a small wall mount in the office, “was taken on the day we opened. “

Heidi tears up, too, grabbing her sister’s hand and giving it a squeeze. Before the shop opened, they decided that 2 Sisters wasn’t going to be only for their benefit. Early on, Holly and Heidi committed to give 10 percent of their gross profit to K-Love Ministries, and in February 2009, they began a partnership with the High Plains Children’s Home. Every child, upon entering the home, receives a tin of spoon fudge. In addition, one dollar from each sale of a tin is donated to the home. They call their mission to give back The Golden Spoon.

“When we were in Stillwater for that first craft show, we decided we’d give,” says Holly. “Even if we only make $30, we’d still give $3.”

“The only way this will fly is if we give. Even when we’re broke, that’s the least we do,” adds Heidi.

The two nearly went broke just a short month after they opened. July and August were slow, so slow that they feared having to close. They brainstormed and came up with a few ideas to carry them through until the holidays, specifically take-home casseroles and soups. It worked, and as soon as all the holiday orders started rolling in, Holly and Heidi breathed a sigh of relief.

It’s clear after sitting with the pair for more than an hour that their relationship, not just as business partners but also as sisters, has been stretched. In the unpredictability of running a business, only the strong survive.

“Look how far we’ve come,” says Heidi. “We’re so thankful, even if this is all it ever is. It’s been hard on our relationship, but there’s no one else I’d rather be with.”

“I mean, we had a big blow out last week, but it’s just the stress of it. I either get fired or quit every day and so does she,” adds Holly, giving her sister a smile.

While they have goals for their business, whether it be franchising or collaborating to create Starbucks Spoon Fudge, Holly and Heidi are quite content in their little shop, created by combining each of their passions and deciding from day one to send a little love to their community.

“This is God’s timing, not ours. We’re just along for the ride,” says Heidi.

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