Main Street in Matawan: A Love Story

It is not uncommon for a married couple to start a small business together.

It is slightly less common, however, for a married couple to start two separate small businesses, with just one shop sitting between each of theirs.

Lee O'Brien, 45, owns Attractive Tattoo at 116 Main Street. His wife, Jennifer, 41, owns My Sister's Closet Consignment at 114 Main Street, which will celebrate it's grand opening soon.

Lee grew up in Matawan, and now lives in Morganville with his wife. The couple met through an online dating service and were married on Feb. 13, 2010.

Lee worked for A1 Comfort Care Heating & Cooling in Wall Township until about a year and a half ago. Around the time he and Jennifer were married, Lee took another plunge. He finally decided to open his own tattoo parlor and chose to return to Matawan to do so.

"I like the little town feel of Matawan," he said. "I want to help bring business back to the area."

He recalls always having a talent for drawing and painting and began tattooing at a young age.

"I've always been an artist," Lee said. "When I was sixteen I painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on a friend's little sister's wall, and it came out better than I thought it would. I started my own small business painting murals for children's rooms."

And even though Lee says he has painted more Disney characters than he ever cared to, the small business quickly led him to the idea of tattooing. Just one year later, at age seventeen, Lee purchased his first tattooing kit and his passion was ignited.

He apprenticed under another tattoo artist and found that his background in painting and drawing helped him excel at shading and creating realistic and well-drawn tattoos, each of which are designed to the contours of the individual's body.

"It really just came to me, and I wound up being better than the guy training me," Lee said.

Unlike most tattoo artists, Lee has only one tattoo.

"I'm like the painter that never paints his own house," Lee joked. Lee has tattooed his wife, however, numerous times.

"It's just like the saying, 'My body is your canvas," said Jennifer. Lee even used a photo of Jennifer from their wedding day that depicts a large tattoo along her back as his business card. The tattoo is of butterflies traveling from the base of her back to her right shoulder.

Jennifer says in addition to Lee tattooing the butterflies on her, the artwork is special because it symbolizes the relationship she had with her mother. 

Lee's solitary tattoo is much smaller. Black letters scripted across his wrist simply read, "Consequences." Lee said the tattoo, which he got in Nov., is a reminder that everything you do, whether good or bad, has a consequence.

For Lee, opening a tattoo shop has been very positive. He lives out his artistic passion every day and is working to revitalize business on Main Street.

One day over the summer, Jennifer decided that she wanted to help, too - by opening her own business along the same section of Main Street. The very next day, she called the property owner, went down to view the shop and signed the lease.

"I'm going 50/50 with my sister. Her husband recently passed and I thought I could bring a little sunshine into her life," Jennifer said. And like that, My Sister's Closet was born.

My Sister's Closet is a consignment shop, with a variety of items including clothes, shoes, paintings and children's toys available.

The business that comes between her's and her husband's? It used to be empty, but it will soon be occupied by their friend, a hair stylist, who decided to open her own hair salon.

"When I signed my lease, I also looked at the property available next-door. I saw it and I told my friend that it was perfect for her and she had to do it, and she did," Jennifer said.

There are four shops connected on that section of Main Street, and just two years ago three of the four were empty. Now, each one boasts a small local business.

Jennifer still oversees as the Northeast as a regional property manager for a real estate company, but hopes to one day make enough money at My Sister's Closet to be able to leave her job and focus on being a small business owner. 

"It's very, very exciting. I'm confident that the shop is going to do well. The clients that have come in so far, they're excited, which gets me even more pumped up," Jennifer said.