Small Business Saturday, Small Brewery Sunday help bring the customers in

(ABC 6 News) – It’s some of the biggest shopping holidays of the year – Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For small businesses, those days in-between are especially important.

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“It’s very important to us, as surviving to make it to next year,” said Steve Nordhus, the owner at ABC and Toy Zone.

Nordhus said Small Business Saturday helps keep local businesses running. Though with the pandemic mostly behind us, the shelves are not emptying as fast as they did a few years ago.

“Definitely inflation has not helped us out. But inventory supplies have been corrected so we’re getting better flow of inventory than we ever have.”

Customers have noticed the couple dollar increase. But Nordhus is doing what he can to put off changing that price tag.

“If we had stuff sitting on the shelf, we don’t mark that up. We wait until the next order comes in.”

You have Saturday covered and for Sunday on this holiday weekend, it’s all about small breweries. Small Brewery Sunday was started in 2020 by the Brewers Association. With people going out again and the World Cup, this year has been particularly good for breweries. Especially with more people in to buy drinks and enter raffles.

“This is an extension of Small Business Saturday. That’s really what it is. It’s an extension of that. It’s about supporting your local craft breweries,” said Steven Kinnie, the co-owner of Little Thistle Brewing Co.

“We’re acknowledging our friends who have local craft breweries here in town. So it’s helping to promote them too. So we’re all trying to promote each other.”

And the message is working.

“We’ve had a nice pour from the local breweries that we get to enjoy here. We certainly didn’t have this type of atmosphere a couple years back,” said Jeramy Schultz who went to different breweries with his wife, Kim on Sunday.

“I mean they all have their own beers that are delicious,” said Kim.

And the breweries are noticing the impact of Small Brewery Sunday.

“Some people are going through different things each day,” said Kolt Gorg, a taproom attendant at Kinney Creek Brewery.

“It’s kind of nice to get people out here and let their worries out a little bit.”

Other breweries participating in Small Brewery Sunday include LTS Brewing, Thesis Beer Project, and Forager Brewery.