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Small Business Saturday keeps holiday spending dollars in Detroit

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Small Business Saturday keeps holiday spending dollars in Detroit

Local entrepreneurs kicked off the holiday season this weekend with Small Business Saturday in Corktown and Southwest Detroit.

Shoppers perused local talent among more than 20 popup booths at the Detroit Hispanic Development Corp. at 1211 Trumbull. Shoppers hopped a courtesy event shuttle from there to check out participating brick-and-mortar shops between the two historic neighborhoods.

The afternoon was a joyful reminder of the city’s economic resilience, said Bob Roberts, owner of McShane’s Irish Pub and president of the Corktown Business Association.

Local small businesses have been participating in Small Business Saturday for years. The 55-year-old business owner and Corktown resident said he believes this weekend’s event was the neighborhood’s strongest coordinated effort since 2019.

Reconfiguring the in-person shopping experience has been especially challenging since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, he said.

Michiganians are just starting to venture out to local businesses again now, nearly five years later, Roberts said. But with rising labor costs and price inflation, local businesses are still feeling the pinch, he said.

“We like to say that we’ve recovered, but we haven’t recovered,” Roberts said. “We’ve survived.”

The cozy Michigan Avenue pub was already getting a small influx of customers shortly after the event kicked off at 11 a.m., he said.

More importantly, Roberts said he hopes Saturday’s shoppers will stick around for the holiday season, when cold weather and the allure of big box online shopping often deters people from venturing out to local businesses.

“That’s why I think that the Small Business Saturday movement is so important,” Roberts said. “It’s to hopefully trigger in people’s minds that ‘I don’t have to go out and buy that name brand item and gift that. I can go out and get something that’s really, really cool – that’s cool, that’s unique, that’s locally sourced, locally made, has Detroit hand’s that have touched it.”

Vamonos! owner Denisse Lopez, was equally glad to be in on SBS, the 39-year-old Detroit resident told The News.

Lopez’s part-Zumba studio, part-coffee shop, part-local art gallery off Vernor Highway was bustling with customers and SBS performers just after noon.

“When I started it, I thought it was just going to be selling smoothies and juices,” she said of her shop, which opened nearly one year ago. “But I think because there was such a lack of community space, it kind of became a community space.”

With a Zumba class underway and a large incoming order for sandwiches on her hands, Lopez said she was looking forward to the next wave of customers who’d stop by.

Normally, she’s used to planning, organizing and advertising her business by herself, she said. Saturday’s event proved a chance to lean on her neighbors and let the space speak for itself, Lopez said.

“It’s going to highlight our business for other people who didn’t even know that we existed,” she said.

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