Buy Local or It's Bye, Local!

Jeff McCullor

Local brewery and bar owner Jeff McCullor implores the Erie community to pull out all the stops in their support of all things local - the massive snowfall compromised the post-Thanksgiving boom most small businesses rely on this time of year.

What happens when an entire community's collection of small businesses have a weekend effectively erased from their calendar? Especially when the weekend in question is potentially the biggest string of shopping days for the entire retail sales season?

Well, it's bad.

Small business owners are resilient. It's part of the job description. They choose to endure challenge after challenge instead of working for the man, opting to actualize their dreams while enhancing the local economy. The emotional highs can be high and the lows can be quite low. Throw a global pandemic at them and they endure. Record-high inflation? They begrudgingly roll with it.

But a freak snowstorm on Thanksgiving weekend has the small business community reeling. The timing was awful — a debilitating weather event coincided with the jumpstart to holiday shopping and most importantly Small Business Saturday, the national "Shop Small" event heavily marketed by American Express. Snowfall totals vary by neighborhood but at least two feet of snow hit the ground with more accumulation arriving on subsequent days, sometimes at an impressive clip of two inches per hour. It was a storm so impactful that as of this writing the area's public and private snow maintenance services are still working through the initial cleanup.

The Black Friday storm threw Lavery Brewing Company an avalanche-sized curveball, a microbrewery and pub normally open seven days a week for lunch and dinner service. Jason Lavery, co-owner and founding brewer, had to shut down operations early on Black Friday and fully shutter the business the following Saturday and Sunday. He estimates he missed out on roughly $15,000 in revenue. "Traditionally this is one of, if not the busiest, weekends of the year for us. Families come back into town and a lot of folks go out to celebrate," he says, and "One thousand hospitality workers received zero tips all weekend."

Mother Nature proved to be a point of frustration and stress for another business on Erie's west side. The Six Pack House of Beer on Pittsburgh Avenue is in a similar situation with safety on the owners' minds constantly weighed against profitability and sustainability of the business.

"Is there a right decision to make in closing or staying open? Some of our employees are paycheck-to-paycheck. If we err on the side of safety and close for the day, they don't earn anything. But if we open up, we generate extra expenses and run the risk of zero customers showing up because of the crazy conditions. It's mentally exhausting," co-owner Alice DeGeorge said.

She continued, "There's definitely a level of guilt because our decisions during this time affect so many people money-wise, including us. We have gone as far as to pick up and take home employees that can't make it in otherwise, but then of course we wonder if it's really worth it at the end of the night."

Could it be worse? Absolutely.

At Erie Ale Works we experienced much of the same. We closed early on Black Friday, stayed shut on Saturday and Sunday, and reopened on Wednesday, Dec. 4. I estimate we lost out on between $5,000 and $7,000. In conversations with my peers I heard similar stories of the weekend promotions that were planned and the loss of so much potential to get ahead financially. Weeks of planning and promotion down the tubes. I could almost hear my friends' heads shaking in frustration when we talked over the phone.

So now what? Well, we do what we always do, keep at it. We're resilient, remember?

What can you do? Buy a local coffee. Buy a local beer. Buy a Christmas gift from a local merchant. Buy local gift cards. Toss another buck in the tip jar. It all helps. This community is greater because of its small businesses and each purchase truly can make an impact.

Jeff McCullor is the co-owner of Erie Ale Works. He can be reached at jeff@eriealeworks.com