While you might still be recovering from Thanksgiving, you can make an early dent in your holiday shopping list while supporting local businesses with Small Business Saturday this weekend.
The annual nationwide event, originally started by American Express in 2010, encourages patronage of local businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year, that date is Saturday, November 26. Brooklyn shops across the borough are participating and eateries offer a break amidst shopping and, in some cases, gifts and gift certificates.
To start you off on making a shopping list, we’ve rounded up nine Brooklyn shops, businesses and restaurants and their owners that have been featured in Brownstoner this year.
The Word Is Change is a full-line bookstore on Tompkins Avenue. Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith
Bed Stuy Welcomes Two Independent Bookstores on Tompkins Avenue
Two new bookstores have popped up on Tompkins Avenue in Bed Study, filling the hole left by Brownstone Books’ closure 10 years ago.
Full service bookstore The Word Is Change has set up shop at 368 Tompkins Avenue, opening its doors just over a year ago, and specialty used bookstore Dear Friend Books took over 343A Tompkins Avenue, just a block up the avenue, in June.
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Ur Fancy Shop founders Katie Beitzel, Lauren Hansen and Cole Hansen. Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith
UR Fancy Shop Brings Homewares and a Creative Hub to Bushwick’s Irving Avenue
A new homewares store, small-scale manufacturing hub and teaching space, UR Fancy Shop, has opened on Irving Avenue in Bushwick with the mission of embedding the manufacturing process in the shopping experience.
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Photo by Susan De Vries
With Focus on Literary Fiction, Indie Bookstore Troubled Sleep Debuts in Park Slope
A bookstore selling new and used books has opened at 129 6th Avenue in Park Slope.
Troubled Sleep, a name shared with a novel by Jean-Paul Sartre, opened its doors to the neighborhood Monday. Comments on social media from customers have been enthusiastic.
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Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith
Caroline’s Donuts Opens Its Doors in Bed Study
A new donut shop has taken up residence in the long-vacant street level space on the corner of Ralph Avenue and Decatur Street and, so far, the reviews are glowing.
Caroline’s Donuts opened its doors to the public on July 14, a fitting Bastille Day celebration for its French owners, couple Thierry Locatelli and Caroline Lameda. It is the pair’s first restaurant in New York City, a place where Locatelli says he has been involved in the food service industry since 1997.
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Michael Angeles at his Bed Stuy cafe and plant store, Botany. Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith
Cafe and Plant Store Botani Preps to Open on Bed Study Corner
Not long after Michael Angeles’ mother immigrated to the United States from the Philippines, she got a Monstera plant. Now more than 40 years old, that plant still lives at her home and a cutting grows in Angeles’ Bed Study apartment. His cutting has also spawned a number of other small Monsteras that live at his friends’ houses.
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Vanessa Li and Bowen Goh. Photo copyright Guaionex Rodriguez Jr.
Duo Behind Bushwick’s Astrology-Themed Bar Mood Ring Serve Up Tips, Stories, Recipes
Brooklynites and longtime best friends Vanessa Li and Bowen Goh were working at “mundane office jobs,” in Li’s words – Li had worked at a queer and trans youth center and Goh had a background in film and business – when they opened the Bushwick bar Mood Ring in 2017. Intended to be a welcoming spot for LGBTQ and BIPOC patrons, Mood Ring offers a rotating menu of astrology-themed drinks timed to the Zodiac calendar.
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The shop opened at 373 Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill in February. Photo by Sean Davidson
Artisanal Home Goods Get a Tryout at Assembly Line in Boerum Hill
If the tag line, ‘Just do it’ wasn’t already taken – and famously so – the founders of General Assembly might have used it to help open their store, Assembly Line, in Boerum Hill. For cofounder Colin Stief, the slogan encapsulates the very heart of why the sought-after design company decided to create a brick-and-mortar store.
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Photo by Cate Corcoran
Eagerly Awaited Saraghina Caffè Opens in Fort Greene With Raw Bar, Pizza, Dessert
A Fort Greene offshoot of the beloved Bed Stuy eatery Saraghina opened to the public Tuesday night, after some friends and family warmed up over the weekend.
Inspired by turn-of-the-last-century cafes in Milan, where he was born, Saraghina founder (and former creative director of fashion firm Tocca) Edoardo Mantelli promised Saraghina Caffè would look like one of those essential cultural institutions, and it does .
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