Seth Swingley, 42, and Casey Kingsland, 42 of Mighty Mo Brew Pub/Mighty Mo Brewing Company

Both are from Great Falls.

“Great Falls has always been a great place to raise a family and we were excited to see what Great Falls could grow into to keep the younger generations from moving away,” Swingley said.

They chose to open in Great Falls because it “was the perfect place for us to open Mighty Mo because of the network of family and friends we had here. It makes opening a business a little less daunting when you have so many people wanting to see you succeed,” Swingly said.

What are the top 3 advantages to operating a business in Great Falls?

Downtown businesses who want to work together to create a positive change in downtown. To make a change, sometimes it needs to be about the community and not just our businesses. There are a lot of business partners who realize this and come together to work on different things. Getting to meet the customers, most of the customers we serve have a positive vision for Great Falls. Takes less than 10 minutes to get to the business if we need to get there quick.

What are the top 3 challenges?

One, finding new employees when needed. Over 50 percent of the applicants we get don’t even complete the application. They are just going through the motion to prevent losing their unemployment or other government assistance.

Two, getting people to understand the parking situation downtown is not a problem when there is parking enforcement. Without enforcement, you wouldn’t be able to park within two blocks of your destination because no enforcement encourages people who live and work downtown to park on the street. COVID-19 sure showed us this. With no enforcement and only 10 percent of businesses open, the parking spots on Central Avenue were 98 percent full all day long.

Three, I honestly cannot think of a third challenge. Great Falls is really a great place to open a business as long as you do your research and due diligence before you are ready to open.

If there was one thing you could change to existing regulations to remove barriers to business, what would it be?

Rewrite the alcohol industry rules and regulations.

What advice would you give to someone considering starting a business in Great Falls?

Learn as much about your industry and community as possible and make sure you are filling a gap in both. You don’t want to do something the same as everyone else in your industry and provide your community with something new and interesting.