In Our Winter 2024 Issue

Hello Friends,

I hope at this moment you are sitting in your favorite spot, warm and cozy while you dig into this Winter issue.

Regular contributor Kathleen Willcox introduces us to Naughter’s, located on 5th Avenue in Troy. Naughter’s has an ambience of great music, friendly people and affordable meals. Owner John Naughter wanted to create that neighborhood place that has a real sense of community. Bonus—the kid- and mom-approved hot cakes.

Kathleen also visited with Mario Cardenas and his sister, Jennifer, and shares their journey to owning the very popular West Avenue Pizza and West Ave. Chicken. I’m planning a trip to Saratoga to try some of the authentic Guatemalan street food off of the “secret menu.”

Regular contributor Maria Buteux Reade’s description of the hearty and earthy English muffin at the Common Crumb made my mouth water. Chef and owner Dana Fowler opened this artisan bakery located in Brunswick in a historic 1872 schoolhouse. A quintessential coffeehouse with a focus on local agricultural sustainability.

We hope you enjoy reading about these passionate entrepreneurs whose stories tell why we should support locally owned businesses. Here’s how the Institute for Local Self-Reliance describes the values that locally owned businesses bring to a community:

In an increasingly homogenized world, communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER HAVE AN ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE.

Locally owned businesses build strong COMMUNITIES by sustaining vibrant town centers, linking neighbors in a web of economic and social relationships, and contributing to local causes.

Local ownership ensures that IMPORTANT DECISIONS ARE MADE LOCALLY by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions.

Compared to chain stores, locally owned businesses RECYCLE A MUCH LARGER SHARE OF THEIR REVENUE BACK INTO THE LOCAL economy, enriching the whole community.

Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors, provide BETTER WAGES AND BENEFITS than chains do.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP fuels America’s economic innovation and prosperity and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class.

Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and MAKE MORE EFFICIENT USE OF PUBLIC SERVICES relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.

Local stores help to SUSTAIN VIBRANT, COMPACT, WALKABLE TOWN CENTERS—which, in turn, are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.

COMPETITION in a marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.

A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a MUCH BROADER RANGE OF PRODUCT CHOICES.

Our spending habits matter. They contribute to the communities we all want to live in.

Warm regards,

Mary Blair
Editor