Small Business Saturday highlights Baltimore's historic main streets
BALTIMORE -- Small Business Saturday helped kick off the holiday shopping season.
WJZ visited one of Baltimore's eight Main Street Districts, which serve as small business hubs for places like Jinji Chocolate.
Guy Fraser is the co-owner of Jinji Chocolate. He owns the shop alongside his youngest daughter, Jinji.
"Who could say no to chocolate," Guy Fraser said.
The new location of the family's chocolate shop is in Waverly—along one of Baltimore's historic main streets. It was one of the stops along the mayor's Small Business Saturday tour.
"Small businesses are the backbone of Baltimore's economy and really this country's economy, you have to—these are people that live in our neighborhood," Mayor Brandon Scott said. "They hire people that live in our neighborhood. The money spent with these businesses are going back into our communities."
Small Business Saturday is part of a nationwide effort to encourage shoppers to support local businesses.
"We're a good example of being family-owned, being minority-owned, and being very sensitive to what we see in the needs of the community," Guy Fraser said.
"I am the owner," Jinji Fraser. "My dad is the owner—Jonathan, who's our general manager, we're all here every day so people get to interface with us all the time, which is so different from a big business," said Jinji Fraser.
Herman's Discount sits next door, and they are celebrating 25 years as a small business in Baltimore.
"Little mom-and-pop stores are like us, you know, we depend on the community to support us and to keep our, you know, food on the table," Ricky Herman, the owner of Herman's Discount, said. "Essentially, you know, we can't compete with big box stores. So, you know, we rely on everybody to come support us."
