Rachel Hunter remembers the line that formed outside her Longmont flower studio and retail shop, A Florae, last year during Small Business Weekend.
Because of Level Red coronavirus restrictions, retail capacity was limited to 50% and indoor dining was prohibited at restaurants. Including a head count of her employees, Hunter said it meant allowing only two to three customers inside to shop at a time.
With those restrictions lifted earlier this year, downtown business owners welcomed bustling crowds back to their stores for Small Business Weekend — a Longmont Downtown Development Authority tradition to celebrate and support local businesses.
Tying balloons to a sign that read, “Shop Small this weekend! Come on in!” Hunter greeted customers outside her shop at 464 Main St.
“This weekend is really huge for small businesses that are in retail,” Hunter said. “We kind of rely on it to some degree. It’s a really important day for us, not just in making up sales that are lost, but it’s just really neat to have people come in and share in the excitement.”
Throughout downtown, thousands of shoppers bustled from shop to shop in honor of Small Business Saturday. People who came downtown could also see ice sculptors transform blocks of ice into art, visit with holiday characters — including a dancing Christmas tree — and listen to holiday music performed by the Longmont Symphony Orchestra in the 300 East Breezeway.
The festivities were part of the Longmont Downtown Development Authority’s Small Business Weekend, which kicked off Friday with a tree lighting ceremony at Sixth Avenue and Main Street, and continues with Artist Sunday today, followed by Cyber Monday.
In St. Stephen’s Plaza, wife and husband Jessica and Josh Laikeman watched ice sculptors with their 4-year-old twin daughters, Charlotte and Miriam. The family moved to Longmont in 2019 and said they love the downtown and planned to do some shopping and check out the Firehouse Art Center on Saturday.
“Supporting our small businesses is superimportant,” Jessica Laikeman said. “We have friends that are small business owners. We are all about local and supporting small business.”
Josh Rinaldi, of Longmont, walked Main Street with his dog, Geordi, in tow. He said he visited downtown Longmont to get to know the town better, since he moved to Colorado a month ago from Portland.
“We’re new to Longmont, and we’re interested in buying local and supporting the place we live — and taking the puppy for a walk,” Rinaldi said.
Inside A Florae, Hannah Kastein, of Longmont, tested out scents of several different candles.
She said she was making “an effort to support businesses.”
“There are a lot of shops I would like to see stay around,” Kastein said.
Longmont’s newest mayor, Joan Peck, who was inducted Nov. 8, was also among those browsing A Florae, with her friends Mitzi Nicoletti and Lynette McClain.
“(Small Business Saturday) is really important, especially since we’ve had so much quarantine time,” Peck said. “We’re having a great time looking at stuff and deciding what we’re going to buy for Christmas.”
Inside the Longmont Yarn Shoppe, at 454 Main St., customers browsed a colorful selection of yarns and visited with alpacas at the back of the store.
“It means the world to us to have our customers feel safe and comfortable to come in here in person and shop,” said store owner Gail Sundberg-Douse. “The only reason we’re able to stay open is that we have a really loyal customer base. We count on them and we hope they can count on us.”
Know before you go
Small Business Weekend continues from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday in downtown Longmont. There will be artist member pop-up booths at the Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Ave.; an Inspiration Gallery artist co-op at the Longmont Downtown Development Authority, 320 Main St.; and local artist pop-ups in Wibby’s biergarten, 209 Emery St.
For Cyber Monday, the Longmont Downtown Development Authority encourages people to support local businesses by shopping their websites or ordering items for curbside pick up. To learn more, people can visit: bit.ly/3HZ1hSb.
