After 35 years running a knitting shop that did brisk business on Chattanooga’s North Shore, Kathy Brunson just couldn’t get through 2020.
“My business just dropped,” said Brunson, who owned Genuine Purl, a go-to resource for local knitters and needlepointers. “You’d be sitting there for seven hours a day and you’d have one or two people come in, and it was getting close to time to order fall yarns.”
At the end of August, instead of placing that big fall order, she had a blowout closing sale and locked the doors.
“I miss the people, I miss my girls that worked with me,” Brunson said. “After 35 years, I had built up customers that had been with me for all of those years.”
The local small business landscape lost restaurants, entertainment venues and boutiques during this pandemic year, from mainstays like Karl’s Family Restaurant in Hixson and Flatiron Deli on Georgia Avenue to newer favorites like the Songbirds Guitar Museum.