Local Business

Thank God for local business owners.  We are in an area that had many local business owners of plenty of non-franchise businesses.  Family businesses.  In fact I have a few that are favorites and a new one to boot.

There is Gramer's Market in Erlanger. Family owned small grocery and butcher shop/deli.  This was where I held my first job as a cashier at the tender age of 15.  The store was entirely run by family Jim was the butcher, Jane ran the grocery and did the payroll, their daughters even helped out at the store evenings and weekends and then there were a few of us who were honorary family for awhile.  They run their store with integrity, respect and care for their community.  Go there for your steaks, a decent sandwich or cup of soup and lottery tickets!

Then there is Lee Hartke Auto Body.  The mechanic and auto body shop who even after winning the lottery continue to give top service to the community with their quick service and honest workers.  Go there when you have a fender bender.

Last week our oven element went out. Broke in half in my husband's hand when he was investigating the problem.  I use the oven daily.  For food and for a kiln for my clay work.  We CAN'T live without one.  I was devastated and expected the worst.  We headed up to Hagedorn and Sons, the local family owned appliance store that is literally right up the street from our home.  We walked in with our broken element and without saying a thing they knew what we needed, got it off the hanger on the wall AND brought the extension we would need to fit it into our oven.  It was a fair price and way cheaper than I thought it would be, and they handled us quickly and with knowledge about what we needed.

When we left the shop my husband told me that this is how things should be.  We had an in depth discussion about how big business has taken away the helpful attitude that dealing with a family owned business gives to the local economy.  We started talking about how differently things would have gone had we entered another big appliance shop or home store.  No one would know that subject matter, it wouldn't have been done easily, it probably would have had to been ordered and who knows if the order would even come in correctly and then we would have been out of an oven for the amount of time to figure out the problem. 

Local businesses are something my husband and I respect and prefer.  We like the small hardware store, the local mechanic, the grocery where OUR clerks know OUR names and OUR children.  We like the small town feel of the small family business and prefer to do our business with those folks.  We go to the smallest library in town because we know the librarians and they know us.  We head to the mechanic shop shared by 2 brothers who's names we know and who are familiar with our car.  Hagedorn and Sons is another local business that we will turn to for our appliance needs even if they are a bit more expensive (which I don't know that they are or not) we will head up the street to our local business owners where the importance of providing for their own families by opening a business runs over to the customers they are serving who are made to feel like part of the family when they are dealing with the business.