Proper Boards & Picnics, a business offering charcuterie boards and other tasty and aesthetically appealing food arrangements, hosted Thursday’s Great Bend Chamber of Commerce Coffee. Owner Paxton Rein prepared one of her “brunch boards,” an assortment of meat, fruit and other snacks.
Proper Boards & Picnics was the winner of the 2024 Ignite Rural Business competition for Barton County entrepreneurs sponsored by Great Bend Economic Development. The deadline to enter the 2025 competition is fast approaching on July 1. Rein’s business offers charcuterie boards, fruit trays, grazing tables and snack spreads. They can’t provide alcohol, but can set up a Bloody Mary bar or a mimosa bar. They also offer instructional classes and tasting and pair experiences. All of the Proper Boards & Picnics events and services can be found on the website, properboards.com.
Rein said she created charcuterie boards for friends and family when she lived in Kansas City. Back then, she had a home business baking pies and sourdough bread and she called it “Paxton Proper.”
She decided to return to Great Bend after COVID and created her business a couple of years ago, recycling the word “proper” for the name.
“I saw an opportunity for something that Great Bend might like and might not like – and you all love it, which is amazing,” she said.
She used to drive to Bushton to use a commercial kitchen to prepare her boards. More recently, she has worked with MyTown to use the former Tellers restaurant in the Zarah building, which is where Thursday’s coffee was held. Her food prep doesn’t include cooking. For the Chamber coffee, the baked goods were from Two Chicks and Some Old Bird in Ellinwood, Charlotte Hall baked the cookies, and mini quiches came from Kat King’s Flavored Celebrations.
“It’s definitely a community effort; I’ve definitely outsourced some things,” she said. Her door prizes included Freaking Delicious Cheesecakes as well as one of her own boards.
Rein will offer a “flag board” building class on July 2, where participants can make a patriotic board for the holiday. “It will actually look like a flag that you can share with your friends and family on the Fourth of July.”
The boards have created a craze, Rein said, but there’s also the “picnics” aspect of her business, which she hopes to expand. “You can rent picnic equipment from me.” She has a little table that sits low to the ground, and decor items to create a “glamping style” picnic for the park or back yard.
Mark Mingenback with MyTown commented that they have a wonderful relationship with Rein, who has used the dining room at Tellers for events. He asked her to share her story about her grandfather, Bob Rein, who had a Kirby vacuum shop on Main Street where Miss Pretty Pickles is now.
“Yes, I’m very familiar with this building,” she said. “We used to run around in the basement. ... It was filled with Kirbys after the Kirby store closed. There were probably 1,000 vacuums down there; he’d keep them to recycle.”
She added, “It’s a very old building. My boyfriend jokes that there’s ghosts at night, as there could be with any older building. But I’m like, me and these ghosts go way back.”
Chamber announcements
• For more information on Ignite Rural Business, visit the website https://www.igniteks.com/.
• After Thursday’s coffee, there was a ribbon cutting at Heart of Kansas Family Health, 1905 19th St., celebrating the relocation and expansion of its behavioral-health services.
• Happy Girl Flower Shop in Claflin is moving to Great Bend. The shop will be next door to Murray Chiropractic in the 2100 block of Kansas Ave. Owner CC Radenberg said she has hired two employees and will need three more. Contact her at happygirlflowershop@gmail.com.
• The online class “Small Business Success: Mastering the Essentials” will be offered from 6-7:30 p.m. Monday by SCORE (Senior Corps of Retired Executives). Register at https://www.score.org/kansascity/event/20250616-small-business-success-mastering-essentials.
• SCORE will also offer “Gathering Info to Confirm, Conflict, Pivot” from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 19. The free program is at https://www.score.org/stlouis/event/gathering-info-confirm-conflict-pivot-6192025.
• The next chamber coffee and ribbon cutting will be Thursday, June 19, at MPIRE Realty Group LLC, 1317 Main. Doors open at 9 a.m.; the program begins at 9:30.
