(ABC 6 News) – Bear Paw Coffee is one of the latest victims of economic pressures that a lot of places are dealing with, but rural shops struggle without the help of a larger pool of potential customers.
Opened in 2022, Bear Paw served driver thru coffee for two years before putting the business up for sale.
A year later and the shop is closed, citing high product, labor, and tax costs and fluctuating local sales as reasons for the closure.
These are impacts familiar to Otto’s Bakery just down the road.
“We make all our own stuff so one day you make what you made the day before,” says owner Ann Marie Hemmah, who runs the shop with her husband. “How we do it is we make a certain amount and then we add what people have ordered but if no one shows up that day then you end up with a lot of leftovers.”
In business for over 50 years, Otto’s Bakery moved from Hayfield to Byron because it was closer to the Hemmah’s family.
It also meant they could take advantage of the much busier Highway 14 as people drove to Rochester for work.
These days it’s the cost of keeping themselves supplied that weighs the heaviest.
“After this many years you have certain products you like from different suppliers, and a lot of them have a minimum that you have to order,” Hemmah says. “So you gotta keep track of what you need, who is best to buy it from, and hope you can hit the minimum or have them understand that in this economy you can’t always hit that minimum.”
One of the biggest helps for the bakery though is the loyal Hayfield customers that have continued shopping with them despite the move.
Those with “side hustle” style businesses also run into the cost problem, but come up with creative solutions to get around it.
Ashley Scanlan, owner of The Bench Handmade Workshop, runs a holiday artisan market that provides local artists a chance to sell their product without having to pay hug registration fees like a larger markets.
“A lot of vendor events at this time of year cost several hundred dollars for some of our vendors to attend and when you only have $200 or $300 in product or inventory that’s really not feasible,” she says. “So those who have a small inventory or sell items that don’t have a large value to them, they’re actually making money instead of losing money on trying to sell at a large vendor event.”
At a time when prices are up everywhere, wallets are tight for both the sellers and the buyers.
“Especially if it’s extras like home decor or holiday decor or they might be scaling back on the amount that they’re spending on gifts,” Scanlan says.
Still, the hope remains for these artists that things will turn around eventually.
The artisan market continues into this weekend and next weekend, and they’ll be collecting food for the Byron food pantry as well.
Details on times can be found here.