Tim Harty, The Business Times 

By the time Dawn Martin and her husband, Lewis Martin, finished listing all of the things the Fruita Copy Shop does – well, maybe not finished; instead, let’s say they listed all of the things they could remember – they wondered if maybe it would’ve been quicker to list the things their shop doesn’t do.

Or doesn’t do yet.

They’ve got five times more space, about 2,800 square feet, after moving into 421 E. U.S. Highway 6&50 in Fruita’s Town & Country Center on May 12. They have more room to carry more merchandise and provide more services, and they intend to do just that.

They’ve been busy doing some renovation, so on May 29 the place was a bit of a mess, but the work was nearing completion. Lewis said two more doors needed to be installed, and Dawn mentioned some carpeting will be installed. Then, a little straightening up should make everything shipshape.

Meanwhile, people are finding them – both the people who used to go to their store when it was at 156 N. Mesa St., and those who walk in and say, “I didn’t even know you existed.”

They’re happy to encounter both.

The move brings them full circle on the adventure of a business they began in 2022 after Lewis sat in the car while Dawn went into the UPS Store before they headed out on a camping trip.

Lewis was amazed as he watched the front door of the store.

“That door never shut,” he said. “Open, close, open, close, open, close.”

After Dawn exited the store and got in the camper, Lewis told her what he had witnessed, and they discussed it.

Lewis said he told her, “You know, we should open one of these in Fruita, because that door never shuts.”

While camping, they came up with a business plan. When they got home, they set a deadline of 90 days to open a copy shop – their own shop, not a UPS one, because they wanted to be all of the things Fruita wants, not restricted to what UPS wants.

“I found a building. Sixty days later, we moved into it, and we started this,” Lewis said of Fruita Copy Shop.

The business struggled early, in part because that first building was too large and expensive.

“We were new, starting out, so people didn’t know who we were or anything,” Dawn said. “It was when I had to cash in my last savings bond, it was like, ‘We need to do something. This is going to be tough until we get going.’ So, then we got the smaller place.”

Lewis said Fruita Copy Shop’s space at 156 N. Mesa St. was only 500 square feet, but that met their needs, had plenty of parking and put them in a location that people in Fruita could find easily: next to the Lower Valley Fire District Building.

“Everybody knew where that was and how to get to us, so we grew probably 70 percent just moving from that (original) location to the new location by the fire department,” Lewis said.

There were still some bumps in the road, but the Martins weathered them and gradually grew to the point where they were ready for a larger location again

And that ended up being in the Town & Country Center, next door to Fruita Liquor Mart.

Of course, they do what most copy shops do nowadays, which is a lot more diverse than 20, 30 years ago, when all such a shop did was, well, make copies, print documents and such. Perhaps send faxes.

They still do that, but now they ship packages: FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service. Send them and receive them. Pretty common service at a copy shop.

But what follows, some similar places may offer the same. Some may not. The totality of what the Martins do is likely uniquely theirs.

And rather than try to apply rhyme and reason to the presentation, this list is best revealed in the way Dawn and Lewis Martin did it: As they thought of it, they said it.

Some items will warrant a little explanation, and some won’t. Some will be quotations, just because the way they said it was fun or more interesting.

Here’s most of what they currently do or have:

• They have temporary mailboxes, 30 small mailboxes, 12 medium and two large.
• They do vinyl. “We can make vinyl signs, we can do vinyl decals for cars,” Dawn said. “We don’t do wraps, we don’t do anything big like that.” 
• They make signs.
• They do T-shirts in small quantities, and they have an arrangement with a fellow Fruita business, Locker Room, 404 Jurassic Ave. “A lot of T-shirt shops, they won’t touch anything 25 (T-shirts) or below,” Dawn said, “and so we’ve talked pretty extensively with the Locker Room, and if he has small orders, he sends them to us. If we have big orders, we send it to them. But we can do 25 or less T-shirts, bags, sweatshirts.”
• They do notarizations.
• “We do childcare,” Dawn said. Ha! Just kidding, seeing if the reporter was paying attention. So, to be clear: NO CHILDCARE.
• Soon, they’re going to carry office supplies. Dawn said, “We’re working on getting that put together and brought in for those moments that ‘Oh, man, I need this, but I don’t want to go to Junction’ kind of thing.”
• They give directions. “It seems like people come in here a lot, ask a lot of questions about where things are in Fruita,” Lewis said. So, the Martins tell them where to find bike shops, bike trails, restaurants, coffee shops (not to be confused with copy shops), barbershops, etc.
• They are going to print some restaurant menus in braille for blind customers and print others in large letters for people who forgot their reading glasses when they went to the restaurant.
• They do paper shredding. Well, they used to do the shredding themselves, but they got so much brought to them that now Fruita Copy Shop serves as a drop-off site, and a third party does the shredding.
• Their walls are free for local artists to display their art. “We don’t charge them,” Dawn said. “We just give them their money (when an item is sold). The reason being is: I need to decorate the walls of my shop, and that’s the easiest way to do it.” Also, she added, “It brings customers in.”
• They sell Fruita Freeze Dried Goodies. “We have been with them since Day 1,” Dawn said.

So, that’s what they recalled off the tops of their heads. It’s a good bet they forgot a few things.

And the Martins expect they will provide more goods and services as they meet more customers. All it takes is a local resident to suggest something that sounds do-able, and the Martins probably will do it. And they’ll try to be fair with their pricing.

“So we do try to do a lot for our community to help them,” Dawn said. “And we understand, I mean, we’re a small mom-and-pop shop. We can’t do everything for as cheap as the big box stores, but we try really hard.”

Lewis added what customers will find in their store is they’re not a number to the Martins.

“You’re a customer to us,” he said.

And Fruita Copy Shop has become something else to the community it serves, as Dawn related, “One of our customers said, ‘You’re Fruita’s personal assistant.’ So that’s kind of been our slogan, my slogan lately, is we’re Fruita’s personal assistant.”