It’s National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day!
Today, we celebrate National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day. We believe that small-scale entrepreneurs are one of the foundations of our neighborhoods and more than deserving of the recognition and celebration. Through our various programs celebrating independent, local small businesses, we have had the good fortune of meeting many of them and telling their stories. Here are just a few of the owners of beloved local storefronts that members of the public have nominated as Businesses of the Month.
Ramaz Kiknadze, the owner of CafeDelia (59 East 8th Street, at Mercer Street) immigrated from the Republic of Georgia and launched a fast-casual restaurant that offers some of his homeland’s most famous dishes, adapted to our on-the-go lifestyle.
Janice Berkeson turned a vintage shopping hobby into Deco Jewels (131 Thompson Street, between Prince and Houston Street), a store that, since 1996, has specialized in costume jewelry and lucite bags, of which it has a world class collection.
Ivan Cisnero immigrated from Quito, Ecuador in the late 1989 and, within a few years, launched Andrade Shoe Repair (320 Bleecker Street, between Grove and Christopher Street), perpetuating a cobbler tradition that has run in his family by marriage since the 1940s.
Manny Goswami came from Gujarat, India in 2008 and, ten years later, opened West 14 Apothecary (312 West 14th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenue), an independent drug store that offers such great service that one of its customers proclaimed that you’d have to break her legs to make her change pharmacies.
Lori McLean (207 Avenue A, between East 13th and East 12th Street) is a jewelry designer who has been selling a carefully curated selection of jewelry within reach by independent designers, including Lori herself, for twenty years.
Claude-Noëlle Toly, the owner of Le Fanion (299 West 4th Street, at Bank Street), came to New York from her native Avignon in the 1980s and has been selling artisanal and antique earthenware, artwork, and artifacts from the south of France for thirty years.
Salam La-Rawi came to New York from his native Baghdad via Paris in the 1980s and has since launched a number of pan-MIddle Eastern restaurants throughout the neighborhood, none more enduring that the beloved Moustache (29 7th Avenue South, between Morton and Leroy Street), an inspired take on Lebanese furns (bakeries).
Elena Liao, co-owner of Té Company (164 West 10th Street, between 7th Avenue and Waverly Place), has made it her mission to introduce our neighborhoods to the joys of high-quality oolong tea from her native Taiwan (and to let us pair it with ridiculously addictive house-made pineapple linzer cookies)
Maegan Hayward leads the East Village Vintage Collective (545 East 12th Street, between Avenue A and Avenue B), a quirky throwback to the old school East Village that sells affordable vintage items, including indispensable ones, such as Alf phones!
Dina Leo is the proprietor of La Sirena (37 East 3rd Street, between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery), which has operated as a sort of Mexican cultural ambassador since 1999, selling handmade artisanal products from different regions from Mexico
Jolie and Gary Alone, the owners of Thompson Alchemists (132 Thompson Street, between Houston and Prince Street), have operated their storefront since 1994 as the shop you would get if a pharmacy, a community center, an art gallery, and a bluegrass stage somehow bred.
Philip Montillaro Sr. has run Greenwich Locksmiths (56 7th Avenue South, between Commerce and Morton Street) a full-service locksmith operation from a key-bedecked shack since 1980.
Explore the rest of our Business of the Month map and learn about some of the many business owners that enrich our communities and give our neighborhoods their unique character.