This holiday season shopping locally can do so much to help the community. Supporting small businesses helps the community thrive and succeed. In a small town like Westerville, many of the people that work in these businesses are not only neighbors but also friends.

Small businesses give back to the community by creating new jobs, offering consumers to contribute to supporting the local economy. The more business they get the more shops they can open. 

Walking down State Street, customers can visit all kinds of little stores and boutiques, coffee, tea, and wine shops, and even restaurants. Many of which are locally owned, small businesses. There’s A Gal Named Cinda Lou, The Ohio Market, Deju Vu, She, Amish Originals, My cousin’s Cottage, Java Central, Espresso Air, Shirley’s popcorn to name a few. 

A Gal Named Cinda Lou is a small vintage shop based around the 50s, 60s, and 70s located on State St. The store sells items from records, clothing, and jewelry to little nick nacks like dolls, books, oven mitts dishes, and a lot more.  

Joseph, a Cinda Lou and Ohio Market customer, really like shopping there to support people and families rather than a big box company. He likes to buy records, jewelry, and accessories. 

The business started in 2006 by primary owner Julie Benatti, and her parents Debbie and Jim. They started their business from Debbie Benatti’s retirement money from teaching at Westerville schools for 31 years.

The shop’s opening idea was her daughter Julie Benatti, she had a love for this era and also is an artist that wanted to promote her work. As the primary owner, this is how she makes a living.

As Jim can attest to, owning a business has its challenges. A small business relies on a smaller customer base than a larger corporation. Mix that with family and time commitments, and it can be difficult.

“The challenge is being able to have time to devote to the business because being in the business is not being able to come in at noon and seven and working those hours there’s a lot of things that are done after hours when you’re not at the business either thinking or coming up with ideas all kind of things that are very important to take it to the next step.”

For Julie, She also had a child two years ago which has made her shift her focus from fully on business to now business and family. 

The good outweighs the challenges when owning a business. “To me, it’s a throwback to my lifetime, I am a musician. I like to listen to music, collect music and impart my knowledge of music to young people…”

He also appreciates the creativity allowed in a small business, as owning your own shop you can set it up how you want to by using your creativity rather than setting it up by the standards of the business.

During the holiday season, Benatti said they plan to “Beef up our key items, so the key items are the hot sellers, that’s socks… certain records… also our staples that we sell all the time the puzzles these cards and you know to have a wide swath of price ranges to attract people.”