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Rachel D’Oro

(c) ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS

12/20/98

   Vicki Martin's customers are really hitting the sauce.

   That's just fine with Martin. The bigger the holiday binging, the better the sales. And no hangovers for these addicts.

   Martin sells salsa and pepper products at her Salsa Vita store at The Mall at Sears. The 36-year-old woman has found enough die-hard chili lovers to keep her in business for more than three years.

   ''You'd be amazed at how many regulars we have,'' she says. ''A lot of people don't even taste their food before they're pouring hot sauce all over it. People are serious about their passion.''

   Business is booming for Christmas, judging by the endless stream of customers looking for spicy gifts Friday.

   ''This is my pepper stop,'' regular Mike Milton said as he picked out fancy chili powder for stocking stuffers. ''I like hot stuff.''

   So do a lot of folks who have discovered Salsa Vita -- sauce of life in Italian.  Some of Martin's customers come in weekly to check out her growing product lines. Martin also sells via mail order, she said.

   If you love peppers, you could spend all day just checking out the inventory in the small shop.

   Bottles, jars and square tins full of the hot stuff -- more than 100 kinds -- fill the shelves, sporting catchy names like Spitfire, Mean Green, Louisiana Crude, Dragon Fire, Brain Damage, Barracuda Bite, and Jump Up and Kiss Me (''hot sauce with passion''). The hottest of them all is Dave's Insanity, followed by Dave's Total Insanity, Martin's top seller. For the meeker palate there's Candy Ass Whoop Ass Wimpy sauce.

   All of them are available at the front counter for sampling on pretzels. On weekends, Martin sets out half a dozen bowls full of red, yellow and green sauces.

   Martin also sells other fiery foods, including chipotle pretzels, chili chocolate almonds, jalapeno jelly beans, brandied cherry chili ice cream sauce. There are pepper posters, cookbooks, calenders, windsocks, aprons, rugs and napkin rings.

   ''This is where you buy a gift for people who have everything,'' said Martin, whose brother, Tim Martin, is part owner.

   The store, named after her 85-year-old Italian grandmother, Vita Lo Monaco, was born in June 1995 as a small booth at the downtown Saturday Market. Martin had seen a pepper-theme store while visiting relatives in Northern California. She worked 13 years at Long's Drug Stores, which closed its Alaska stores in 1995, just as the Saturday Market shoppers were urging Martin to keep going with her business.

   So on a $15,000 investment, she opened a kiosk at the Mall of Sears. It was such a hit that mall managers encouraged her to move into a real store of her own the following year.

   Now she's working 70 to 100 hours a week, but for her own business, she said. Martin also employs two part-time workers, plus three extra part-timers during the holidays.

   Martin can't explain the lure of hot salsa, other than that she supplies military or civilian transplants from the Lower 48 with the foods they grew up with. Maybe hot treats are comforting in such a cold place, she said.

   Whatever the reason, Martin launched her idea the right way, said Bridget McLeod, a spokeswoman for the Small Business Development Center run by the University of Alaska Anchorage. McLeod is a Salsa Vita shopper herself, she said.

   ''She identified her market, started small and made it attainable,'' she said. ''She just has a neat little business there.''

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