Crowds may have been slowed down by the cold weather, Saturday morning, but downtown merchants still found Downtown Soul City’s fourth annual Small Business Crawl a boon for sales.
The Small Business Saturday promotional event kicked off at 10 a.m., when shoppers could come to Augusta & Co. for tote bags and crawl maps.
“In about the first hour and a half, we’ve given away all 200 totes,” said John Porter, director of Downtown Soul City. “So there’s at least 200 people out here, and there’s definitely been more streaming by, so it’s good response.”
Earth Pantry opened in November of last year, just in time to participate in last year’s crawl. This year, groups of visitors were fairly steady, as the Broad Street grocer offered bundles of products and free cookbooks with purchases of $25 or more.
“It’s actually a little slower this year, but I wouldn’t say it’s because of people not loving downtown,” said owner Alexia Gonzalez, who attributes a slight decrease in traffic this year to leftover fatigue from Hurricane Helene. Even with this, she notes that the crawl is “Always a fun day because everyone’s in the Christmas spirit.”
Brianne Martin and Danielle Harmadi, owners of Broad Street shop Freshwater Design Co., echo this sentiment, acknowledging that though fewer customers came by overall, the day still proved busy in the best ways.
“We can’t complain, it’s still a wonderful day,” said Martin. “It’s most [downtown businesses’] best day of the year,” with Harmadi adding that “it’s best for all businesses to have something going on for people to come out and shop” to draw foot traffic.
Alyse Neal participated in the crawl for her first time, this year, setting up a table for her enterprise, Southern Unity Apothecary, on Broad across from Freshwater and Earth Pantry.
“It was on and off, slow then fast,” said Neal, whose business offers handcrafted herbal tea blends and tinctures to tend to a range of issues from colds and sore throats to anxiety.
“I saw a lot of people in the morning, when they were getting their bags,” Neal said.
Three Crows Fiber, the yarn store just off Broad on James Brown Boulevard, opened in September, and enjoyed a busy first year during the crawl.
“It’s been steady all day,” said co-owner Karen Heid, comparing Small Business Saturday’s turnout to normal Saturdays, though noting it was probably more comparable to the Thursday afternoon the store had its grand opening. “Lots of people coming in feeling the yarn, buying, not buying… a lot of people out of town.”
The crawl was Soul City’s first event, launched in November of 2021. Since then, the downtown merchant association has nine such yearly events under its belt, such as Camp Soul City in the summer, a testament to their effectiveness in encouraging Augustans to shop local, notes Porter.
“We’re growing steadily. Small Business Saturday is no exception to that,” he said. “We’ve seen more and more people come and attend every year. More people get excited. Today there was even a line of people waiting for their tote bags before Augusta & Co. was even open. So we know that they’re excited and ready to support us and the small businesses.”
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
