By NATALIE CROFTS, UPP Editor—

After a successful night of fun promoting a friend’s new restaurant, three women had an idea – wouldn’t it be fun to do again?

From that idea Sassy Scoops, a web site that features local Utah businesses, came to life. The site has covered food, fashion, leisure and entertainment, family fun and wellness.

“I love how our method of spreading the word is based around word-of-mouth marketing, getting a mom’s stamp of approval on a local business’ product or service,” said Quinn Curtis, co-owner and creative designer. “I am really passionate about local businesses not only surviving, but thriving.”

A few of the Sassies during a recent review.

The “Sassies”—comprised of three owners and five additional contributors— have learned how to balance their family schedules with the needs of the other businesses they manage.

“We have it all down to a really smooth system,” said Vanessa Brown, co-owner and marketing director. “It took awhile to get there, but we’re all really big on time organization.”

Curtis agreed.

“We try to schedule all our reviews so that they are on only one night a month to keep nights away from our family to a minimum,” Curtis said. “I mostly work on my contributions for the site during naptime and before my kids wake up.”

Occasionally Sassy-related activities and family mix as they bring kids or husbands along with them. One such activity was when they visited a local farm and brought their kids with them to learn how to make apple cider.

All the owners of Sassy Scoops also own other local companies, so they are able to relate to those they write about.

“We’re all self-employed and own Utah businesses, so we know how it is,” Brown said. “Even if it’s going well it’s really stressful, and we just like to help them out.”

Providing attention for local companies is an integral part of the Web site.

“I’ve always been a big supporter of ‘Shop Local,’ so promoting and supporting Utah’s small businesses on SassyScoops.com is fabulous,” said Emily Hill, co-owner and managing editor, in an email. “I get to look forward to a girls’ night out once or twice a month where we learn the scoop behind some truly wonderful local companies. We then give our readers a tempting ‘taste’ of these businesses so they’ll stop by and give them a try.”

Brown encouraged buying local.

“I think if people understood even a little bit of the emotion behind owning a local community business, where you give your whole heart and soul to it, instead of going to Walmart they would go [out of their way] to support local,” she said.

Sassy Scoops is working on franchising the company to have locations around the country for groups of women to help spread the word about local hot spots in their areas, Brown said.

“We’ve already had interest from other major cities to start local version of SassyScoops in their areas,” Hill said.

More information about the Sassies can be found at SassyScoops.com.