Quincy businesses find fertile soil for growing entrepreneurial dreams

Published 2:58 pm Friday, July 24, 2026

QUINCY — Chef Soner Oztel said he’s found a spot that he feels he can grow with his restaurant in the heart of Quincy’s historic District, even at times when traffic is slower.

“I was so busy the last two months,” Oztel said. “It’s started getting slower, I guess with school out for the summer. But we can see people like the new places, try the new places, and when they like it, they keep coming back.”

Oztel owns and operates Spincy, a Turkish-style restaurant that brings a small taste of Istanbul to the Gem City. Opening in April, Spincy is just the latest addition to a flourishing downtown area where success has found deep roots for a number of businesses.

Recent years have seen businesses sprouting and growing like flowers in spring. Names like the Quincy Brewing Company, 8te Open, and Platt Daddy BBQ join mainstays like the Silhouette Shop and Dame Hurdle/Udry Jewelry in the area around the Sixth Street Promenade.

“This community’s success doesn’t come about by accident,” Bruce Guthrie said. Guthrie is the president and CEO of the Quincy Area Chamber of Commerce. “I think it’s a combination of many things that are developing. I think there’s a real confidence in this community within the workforce. I think that’s what creates this success that you’re seeing in a lot of businesses.”

Expanding the circle a little wider, you see things like the second Quincy location of Carter’s Coffee Bar right next door to one of the city’s two Burger King locations, a local business thriving alongside a chain restaurant.

“In this community, businesses support each other,” Guthrie said. “I see it all the time. We can have our small businesses, our mom-and-pops, call it whatever, but at the same time have our big-box stores, they can live together. They’re able to support each other.

“For the small business owner, they’re the backbone of this community,” he added. “They’re here, they believe in Quincy, and that’s why they invest. That’s how they’re supporting their families here.”

For Oztel, who grew up in Turkey, moving to Quincy around four years ago was just one step on a long road that led him to open Spincy. After working as a delivery driver, Oztel took a leap of faith by taking over the former Maine Course restaurant space, renovating it himself, and bringing his chicken dishes to the city.

“I came to Quincy because of my wife, she’s from here,” Oztel said. “I had a hard time finding jobs, and so I decided I just had to chase my own dream. I just want to bring the freshness that’s in America, because I have this big dream.”

Oztel said his dream hasn’t reached the end with the opening of his restaurant. He said he would like to add another location on Broadway, and eventually expand to Springfield, into Iowa, and even St. Louis. But Quincy’s District is where those dreams have started to grow.

Guthrie said Quincy is uniquely suited, both in geography and in mentality that provides such ample opportunity for businesses, like families, to thrive and grow.

“We’re a small community, but we’re also one big community,” he said. “You help each other, you look at challenges and problems that you may have and come up with solutions. A lot of times, I find some businesses think that they’re the only ones living in this bubble of a challenge, and they find out, ‘Oh, my gosh, you had that same problem.’”

“One of the things I like to say is that a chamber’s role is to show businesses they’re not alone,” he continued. “We’re here to help them, and all the other businesses will help them and will lead them in a direction or down a path where they can get an answer to their problem or solve it, whatever it may be.”

Organizations like the Chamber, as well as the Great River Economic Development Foundation (GREDF), and the District, all working out of one location, serve to be a support base for both new and existing businesses, an approach that appears to be paying off.

“We want to help you connect,” Guthrie said. “We’re going to advocate for you, as a local business, to our local government, of course, but also to the state and federal governments. Where we can, we’re going to be an advocate and a voice for this community.”

Oztel said one of the biggest aspects he focuses on is keeping it local when and where possible. He said he starts most days around 6 a.m. working on the chicken he’ll serve that day, and then goes to Hy-Vee for fresh produce like tomatoes and onions so he doesn’t have to rely on frozen supplies like a lot of chain restaurants do.

“I don’t do it like that,” he said. “I just want to give people fresh, healthy food.”

Oztel proudly shared he recently completed another part of his dream, becoming an American citizen and adding the middle name of “Samuel” to his signature. Opening Spincy has continued to expand on that dream.

His advice to anyone that has their own dream of opening a business in Quincy, regardless of what type of business, is to simply take that plunge.

“If you have some goal, if you have some dream, just do that,” he said. “When I moved to America, I just always wanted to open a restaurant, and I’m just following my dream. So if they have any dream, if they want to start a business, they just need to follow their dream.”