This Wednesday is the last day of the Globe Coffee Lounge Globe Coffee in St. Petersburg, Fl. How do I know this? Well I have been following a certain blog in the NYT in the small business section. It features different writers talking about their various small business experiences. Two that I find most poignant are Paul Downs of Paul Downs Furniture Paul Downs in PA and Bruce Bruschel who has opened a restaurant out there on the end of Long Island. Bruce was talking about how he was having difficulties keeping his new business viable during the long cold dormant season of winter in LI. As I’m sure all you NYT readers know there is often a comments page accompanying the columns. Well, there was one reader Blog Post who posted on Bruce’s blog column that he should take over her business in St. Petersburg which was closing very soon. That business? The Globe Coffee Lounge. I took a look at the website and facebook page and saw how it chronicled her existence as a small business coffee shop owner. She had been in business for 12 years and finally decided that enough was enough. She got a great gig at a local radio station and decided that she was done done done done done at the coffee shop. On so many levels can I sympathize with her in her decision. Owning a small business is one of the most consuming things a person can do with ones’s life. To do it for 12 years as she has done should be translated into dog years in the amount blood, sweat, toil and tears that I’m sure she has given. The point of this post is to say I have tremendous respect for what she has accomplished and also to raise awareness and ask all you great folks out there to patronize the small businesses in your community. I cannot emphasize this enough!! Because you know what kind of business all of us small business owners are actually in? WE ARE IN THE QUALITY OF LIFE BUSINESS!!! Do you really want the landscape of the town you live in to be nothing but sterile big box stores that do nothing but suck the soul out of everything that they touch? Then please patronize the small business in your neighborhood!! It is because of them that small towns are interesting places to visit and live in. It is because of small businesses that all the charitable organizations and groups and summer theaters and churches and libraries and everything else in the small town get funding from donations to continue to exist. It is because of small businesses that your teenage kids have interesting summer jobs to save for college. It is because of the taxes that small businesses pay that keep the trash collected and the lights on the town trees during the Christmas season. So take some time off from Walmart and Amazon and those other megaevilmonsters and patronize the small business that employs your son or daughter or friend. Believe me, they’ll appreciate it a hell of a lot more than those big companies will!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
