10 Brooklyn Stores to Check Out This Small Business Saturday

If you want to check a few items off your holiday list, you can spend your money during Small Business Saturday this weekend.

Now that the Thanksgiving meal has been gobbled up, the pressure to tackle the holiday shopping list is on. If you want to check a few items off your list while strolling through some Brooklyn neighborhoods and supporting local shops and restaurants, you can spend your money during Small Business Saturday this weekend.

The annual nationwide event, originally started by American Express in 2010, encourages sponsorship from local businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year, that date is Saturday, November 30th. Organizations like Shop Small Greenpoint and NYC Ferry promote family-friendly spots under the “Shop Small” moniker. Shop Small Greenpoint is conducting an in-person screening and stores throughout the neighborhood are open (in-person or online) for gift shopping. Restaurants offer a break from shopping and, in some cases, gifts and gift certificates.

To start making a shopping list, we rounded up 10 Brooklyn stores, businesses, and restaurants and their owners that have been featured on Brownstoner so far in 2024.

Nonbinarian Book Bike’s first store will open next month in Crown Heights

The Non-Binary Bookstore, possibly the first in Brooklyn to exclusively sell queer books, is opening a store at 1130 President Street in Crown Heights. The store will be open to the public from 11am to 7pm daily from Friday 8th November.

The Non-Binary Bookstore is an expansion of the Nonbinarian Book Bike, a mutual aid effort that has been delivering free queer books in Brooklyn for about two years via a bright pink cargo bike. K. Kerimian, a veteran bookseller, started the bike as a way to get books by LGBTQ+ authors into the hands of people in book deserts (geographical areas where it can be difficult for people to access books) throughout Brooklyn.

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Palestinian Restaurant Ayat to Open ‘Non-Profit’ Outpost and Cafe in Bushwick

Popular Palestinian restaurant Ayat is expanding to Bushwick’s Knickerbocker Avenue with a new outpost, and next door on Starr Street is opening what it describes as a nonprofit cafe that supports humanitarian causes locally and across the country. world.

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Amada Williamsburg Comic Store Desert Island to Close Due to Rent Increase

Comic book store Desert Island announced on Instagram in October that it would close its doors at the end of the year because the landlord nearly doubled the rent. After the news broke, a fundraiser was launched to help the store secure a new location. The store will remain in its current location until Christmas this year.

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Williamsburg Shalom Japan Restaurant Merges New Traditions

Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel fell in love with food. For the two chefs who arranged to meet at a Chinese restaurant, food became a way to get to know each other and learn about each other’s stories. Okochi, who came to the United States from Japan to study, and Israel, who grew up in a Jewish American family on Long Island, shared their cultures through late-night home-cooked meals on Okochi’s Crown Heights fire escape.

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Longtime Bushwick Business Krown Hardware to Reopen on Broadway

Bushwick’s Krown Hardware store will continue its more than 70-year operation on Broadway when it reopens to the public in its old building, but in a smaller space.

The three-generation family business is one of the few local businesses to survive the arson and looting of the 1977 blackout. Owner AJ Adipietro is taking the reins from his father, longtime owner Anthony Adipietro, who took over the business from his father , Pat Adipietro. Located at 1325 Broadway from the 1980s until its closure more than a year ago, the store plans to reopen in a smaller area isolated from the neighboring business L Train Vintage.

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Tokyo listening rooms and Istanbul taverns inspire Middle Eastern restaurants in Bed Stuy

A new Middle Eastern restaurant and bar with an equal focus on food, drink and music will open on Bed Stuy’s Malcolm X Boulevard in the coming months, aiming to bring the feel of Tokyo’s listening rooms mixed with Istanbul’s taverns.

The name Laziza means “a good thing” in Arabic, and for owner Jilbert El-Zmetr, who is Lebanese Australian, the inspiration for the restaurant came from all the things he said he loves in life: Middle Eastern cuisine; good drinks; funk, soul and groove; and spending time with friends, family and neighbors.

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Huge Danish Mid-Century Modern Vintage Furniture Warehouse Opens in Red Hook

A large Danish mid-century modern furniture warehouse with a devoted following has traded its Jersey City store for a store twice the size on the waterfront in Red Hook, next door to Ikea.

Lanoba Design is known for its attractive prices, high quality and vast selection. Founders and husband and wife team Lars Noah Balderskilde and David Singh move nine or 10 containers a year of items acquired by Balderskilde in their native Denmark, most directly from the original owners (or their children) who purchased them in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Bakery and cafe with basement cocktail bar to open in Bed Stuy

A bakery and cafe that will combine Middle Eastern and South American flavors in its signature recipes plans to soon open its doors on Hancock Street in Bed Stuy and, if all goes according to plan, in the coming weeks a cocktail bar will open in the basement down there.

An eye-catching black and white mural was painted on the exterior of the building on the corner of Hancock Street and Howard Avenue in preparation for the opening of Bakery by Textbook. The new restaurant is related to Textbook Cafe in Fort Greene.

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After delay, Mediterranean restaurant Dar525 plans Bed Stuy opening

After more than a year on the books at the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and Hancock Street, Mediterranean restaurant Dar525 will open in mid-May, an employee told Brownstoner.

Brown paper has fallen from the windows of the restaurant at 231 Malcolm X Boulevard, and the “coming soon” sign we saw last year is long gone. Gold letters advertise brunch, lunch, dinner and drinks on the window panels, and signs of activity are visible inside. Tables are stacked in the dining room, the bar appears to be set up, and art covers the visible walls.

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Café Xocolatte Bushwick brings Mexican and Ecuadorian treats to Wilson Avenue

When Isrrael Martinez and David Almagro met working behind the bar at a nightclub in Astoria in 2018, they formed an instant friendship sparked by their shared Latino heritage and love of hospitality. “We just click, we work together as a team,” said Almagro, who moved to New York from Ecuador seven years ago. “I like how he works, how he interacts with people and I started following him.”

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