The Boulder County Business Hall of Fame proudly welcomes Cheryl and Sam Sussman, founders of Eight Days a Week. Their story in Boulder starts in 1971, when Sam relocated from Wilmington, Del., where he worked for IBM. Sam, a University of Kentucky graduate, started a company called Earth Dynamics Inc. with several friends. Their manufacturing facility was located in Louisville in the structure now known as Cinnabarre Theater.
Upon her graduation from the University of Delaware, Cheryl followed Sam to Boulder, where they bought 18 acres of land on Sugarloaf with a close friend and quite literally camped out on the land in tents, a school bus and a small log cabin.
In 1976, Sam and Cheryl started Eight Days a Week, General Store News and Smoke Shop at 18th and Pearl streets. Their shop featured an IBM copier, adding the first color copier when it became available in 1977. This combination of neighborhood general store and copy center began Eight Days’ community involvement with Boulder’s residents, businesses and nonprofits.
It wasn’t just the color copier that joined the world in 1977. Sam and Cheryl welcomed their first child, Mariah, that year. Just three years later, Eight Days a Week Copy Center opened on Walnut Street. Sam and Cheryl continued to keep up with their three-year-old and fast-changing technology, and in 1981, they welcomed their second daughter, Mollie.
In 1999, they bought their newly built space at ninth and opened Eight Days a Week Imaging and Copy Center. Eight Days a Week remained in that space and owned by the Sussman’s until 2017 when they sold both the space and the business. Eight Days a Week is now found on Water Street and is under the ownership and care of its new owner, Joe Mullan of the Allegra Group.
After the loss of their Sugarloaf home in the Four Mile Fire, the Sussman’s can be found in their new home in Eldorado Springs with an ever-growing family.