Small Business Saturday celebrates locally-owned businesses as holiday season begins

The annual Small Business Saturday shopping event highlighting deals offered by the Coastal Bend’s independent, homegrown business community drew shoppers to venues all over Corpus Christi and beyond on Saturday.

The Shop Small Crawl was one the many events held that day in business districts across the country aimed at showing off local businesses in a pub-crawl style. Other local events included the Rock & Roll Flea Market at the House of Rock, the Shop Small Downtown event and Shop Small Saturday in Rockport’s Cultural Arts District.

Rockport’s merchants reported crowds that started early and filled the district’s businesses.

Patti McLead of Songbird Chic, Décor for your Nest at 416 S. Austin Street in Rockport, said her shop flipped to featuring Christmas items in early October and customers have been supportive. She said the local downtown merchants association pulled together to get promotional materials out, and it worked.

“Friday and Saturday, you couldn’t stir’em with a stick,” McLead said of the crowds. “It was wonderful.”

In Corpus Christi the House of Rock at 511 Starr St, downtown hosted a Rock and Roll Flea Market with local vendors, The event included sales of vinyl records, CDs and band merchandise, and they told the Caller-Times that attendance was good.

Shop Small Downtown featured Shop Small Bingo, in which participants had a chance to win $500 in prizes donated by downtown businesses.

Gift baskets a draw at some events

Organizers of some store crawls handed our cards that shoppers would get signed-off in participating businesses. When complete, shoppers were to drop off the card for a chance at winning a gift basket.

Many of the 12 participating businesses in the Shop Small Crawl event welcomed vendors inside or outside their shops in pop-up marketplaces.

Ray and Lauren McNabb of McNabb Microfarms LLC in Calallen set up a table in The Roughian, a participating business at 4705 S. Alameda St. that serves reservation-only dinners and a walk-in Sunday brunch.

“It’s been going steadily,” Ryan McNabb said of foot traffic through the event.

Things were also busy next door at Driftwood Coffee, where vendor Mellissa Parks of CorpusSoulBeauty helped customers interested in her jewelry and other items.

Jordan Medina was busy behind the coffee shop’s service counter as he and wife Ashley Medina served beverages to a steady stream of customers Saturday afternoon before sending them next door to The Roughian for food and pastries.

Business celebrates new location

She Shed co-owner Marsha Gonzalez and her brother, co-owner William Vega, were a bit swamped as new and returning customers roamed their new store location at 3735 S. Alameda St. – larger than the spot they were in for years across Weber Road.

"We loved it, but were outgrowing it," Gonzalez said of the first location.

She Shed joined with a business that wasn’t on the crawl list, Herbanna, to organize The Market on the Veranda, bringing vendors out to line the shopping area’s parking lot as a bubble machine filled the air with soap bubbles.

Gonzalez said the new shop is larger than the old one and allows for window displays and showing off table and chair sets crafted by David Marsh of Houston.

Another stop on that crawl was Boarri Craft Meat & Goods at 817 Staples St. in Corpus Christi. Nathan Kolenovsky said the family business is seeing its third holiday season at that location.

“It’s been really steady,” Kolenovsky said of the Small Business Saturday crowd,” a lot of new customers, which is really nice.”

The business sells meats and pre-made dinner entrees to cook at home as well as an assortment of charcuterie items, some breads and rolls, goat cheese and even “Boarri Blend” microgreens from the McNabb Microfarms LLC farm.

It recently started serving lunches. The renovated building was once a Piggly Wiggly store and was the second H-E-B ever bought, according to the Caller-Times archive. It then changed hands to Chancellor Food Store, and Superior Ice Cream before becoming vacant and used for storage for three decades.

Small Business Saturday was created by the credit card company American Express during the recession of 2010 to boost holiday shopping in small businesses.

American Express makes free promotional materials available to participating merchants.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Events, shop crawls marked Coastal Bend's Small Business Saturday