Chalsa Combs aims to bring joy, wellness, and connection to her community through her ventures Pamlico Picnics and The Fresh Fig. As a mother, hard working entrepreneur and life coach, she's crafted a unique blend of experiences that have allowed her to nourish the body and the mind, one lovely picnic and juice shot at a time.

After graduating from Columbia High School in 2005, Combs went on to attend Liberty University where she took up psychology. However, a long-term stint in higher education would not be in the cards for her, as soon after, she left the institution to grow her family.

“After I graduated, I ended up having my oldest daughter. I had her in April of 2006,” Combs recounts. “It was a lot at the time. I ended up going to liberty University full time so I did some schooling…but after I left, I ended up going straight to work.”

For Combs, this meant returning to her family’s long time endeavor, namely managing professional cleaning outlets at several locations across the east.

“Our family didn’t own the cleaners, but they did manage all three of the locations in Manteo, Nags Head and Killdevil Hills,” she explains. “We were literally spread out between all three locations… are used to go there every summer while I was in school, but it ended up becoming a full-time thing after I had my daughter.“

Sometime afterwards, things changed for Combs and her family. After the cleaning business shutdown, she decided to move to Washington to begin anew.

“In 2016 I left Columbia and moved to Washington where I started a rental business,” she says. “I decided to call it Pitch a Tent… it was a company that rented out bounce houses, waterslides, tents, tables, and chairs. All commercial grade.“

As Combs tells it, the idea came about randomly during a visit to Kmart and was an immediate success.

“All of this came about after I had my son in 2016. When me and his dad were in Kmart one day, we literally just looked around and said, ‘hey, we should start a business selling tents,’” Combs recalls. “It was crazy, and it was out of the blue, but it took off. It was a very successful business.”

Combs would quickly find that even success had its drawbacks, and soon enough, she found herself operating the business nearly 7 days week, with little respite in between. During this successful period Combs would also cultivate other important business partnerships and expand her coverage.

“The business ran us seven days a week. We did partner with the venue in Grimesland, called The Robin’s Nest, and we would set up tents for her weddings, which was a great opportunity,” Combs says. “Still, we were traveling all over. It wasn’t uncommon for us to be on the road as early as 4 a.m., and then be on the road as late as 2 a.m.… it was tough, but we did it.”

Along the way, Combs’ family continued to grow, albeit during an inopportune moment.

“During that time I had my oldest son. My water broke right on the side of the road while we were picking up bounce houses,” she laughs. “We were leaving Raleigh and on our way to Chowan County but we had to shoot to the hospital instead.”

Combs would successfully operate Pitch a Tent, while working as a book store manager at Beaufort Community College for the next few years and well into the COVID-19 era. However the pandemic would not be the biggest enemy to Combs’ endeavors...