Daily Inspiration: Meet Mary McKnabb

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary McKnabb.

Hi Mary, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I have lived in SE Denver since moving here at 1 years old with my parents. I graduated from Thomas Jefferson HS. Since high school I have been in the hospitality industry.

I also worked for the Dex Yellow Pages in from 2001 – 2012. While working at Dex I founded a small house cleaning business to help find work for some friends of ours from Serbia that came here as migrants in 2003. At this time the company was a small side business.

Correctly I was laid off from the Dex Yellow Pages (obviously) at this time I decided to run the cleaning business full-time. At this time I was also the director of a local non-profit that raised funds for Catholic Education.

In 2019 I opened another small business, a local neighborhood tavern, Inga’s Alpine Tavern.

Currently both businesses, House Clean Services and Inga’s Alpine Tavern are owner operated.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Owning a small business is not for the faint of heart.

Shortly after opening the restaurant COVID hit.

Right now I am struggling with both businesses, Denver has been taking some hits since COVID, crime has been an issue as has the general economic downturn with raising costs and inflation.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My cleaning business specializes in property management firms. We clean empty and vacant homes. We clean homes between tenants.

We do everything from a light touch up to eviction cleans.

As for my tavern we are a friendly neighborhood bar that is known for food that is better than your average tavern fare. We do a fair amount of 3rd party deliveries.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I feel like I am a huge risk taker.

I took a huge risk to leave the stability of working for corporate America to clean houses full time. In fact I was asked if I missed CenturyLink while cleaning a dirty toilet. My response is that I wouldn’t trade the cleaning for a corporate meeting and I didn’t miss the corporate job at all.

While I was the director of the non-profit Universal Education Supporters I took on the busiest stands at Coors Field and Empower and had the faith that I would find enough volunteers to staff the stands and we ended up having some of the best years in fund-raising in our history.

The restaurant I own is nothing but risk taking. I bought out two of my partners right after the pandemic and am always looking for new ways to stay open such as catering and virtual concepts for delivery.

Pricing:

• We charge between .15 and .40 per square foot.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.housecleanservice.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingasalpinelounge/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/housecleanservice.net/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/housecleanservices/