'Sweet northern neighbours': Thunder Bay bakery encourages customers to support local businesses
Owner was inspired by Toronto barber, profiled on CBC-TV's The National, who started similar program
A Thunder Bay small business owner is providing an incentive to its customers to also support neighbouring businesses.
The Sweet North Bakery is offering to provide a 15 per cent discount to customers who show a receipt from another business in the Waterfront District BIA.
Owner Erin DeLorenzi said the sweet northern neighbours idea is about encouraging people to support local businesses.
"We're hoping that people will discover businesses downtown that they haven't been to yet, that they'll appreciate that you can walk through downtown and there's retail, there's food, there's tattoos and there's a variety of businesses," she said.
"We're just hoping to get people visiting these stores and realizing we have some real gems in our city."
DeLorenzi said she got the idea one night while watching CBC's The National, which featured a story on a Toronto barber offering a discount to customers who produced a receipt from a neighbourhood business after learning some were facing the threat of a permanent closure.
"My heart sank at the thought of myself experiencing that," she said. "What if I saw a neighbouring business, and their employees, with that look on their face because their business had just closed and I thought there's got to be something we can do so that even if that does happen, at least we know we tried and maybe it could be avoided."
DeLorenzi said business has declined from last year at her Court Street bakery and emotionally this has been an up-and-down year, but since the start of the pandemic has noticed more of a push to support small businesses.
"The support has been fantastic. When people come in to visit our business they encourage us and thank us. We feel like we're part of a community that wants us to survive and wants to support the local businesses."
DeLorenzi said the offer will extend through the month of November.
You can hear the full interview with Erinn DeLorenzi on CBC's Superior Morning here.