Can’t blame Seattle for all small business woes

Another small business has gone under, citing the difficulty of doing business in the City of Seattle. While the city is undoubtedly inhospitable to businesses of all sizes, I’m not so sure I’d blame Seattle — or corporations — for this particular failure.

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In a letter posted to their storefront several weeks ago, La Toscanella Bakery announced they have closed up their South Lake Union shop and will instead do business out of South Park. Owner Teresa Elizabeth and staff wrote a heartfelt note:

“Running a small business has been increasingly difficult in Seattle – you may notice that we are not the only small shop closing recently in the neighborhood. […] It’s painful to loose [sic] against the machine, but at least you had a taste of delicious along the way. Never before has ‘eat and shop locally’ been more important to all of us.”

Delicious was an understatement. This bakery rocked.

“A lot of those other mom and pop shops that were originally chosen for the neighborhood have not survived,” Elizabeth said in a teary interview with KING 5. “Big businesses are the ones that can handle the rent around here.”

Indeed, Blue Moon Burgers closed down a few weeks earlier and Danah Abarr of the South Lake Union Chamber of Commerce reports to KING 5 that a couple small businesses are leaving the area every month.

Now, it’s easy to blame a lack of city leadership for the excess rents in the area. Politicians like city Councilmembers Mike O’Brien and Lorena Gonzalez have adopted anti-business attitudes that prevent them from even attempting to understand the difficulties of small business owners. And, no doubt, a lack of vision and stifling of development from the council over the years has created neighborhoods where lack of supply has driven up the price. But to place the blame on them, in this case, seems unfair.

La Toscanella existed for years in a neighborhood driven by the spending habits of Amazon employees, many millennials, with a lot of extra cash to spend on meals and snacks throughout the day. The sidewalk outside this bakery has always been lively. The rents may have gone up, but so has the number of potential customers walking by. And as amazing as this bakery was (I have been a number of times over the past couple years), it clearly wasn’t the right fit for this particular neighborhood.

How do I know this? Because in a neighborhood like South Lake Union, if there’s interest in your offerings, you will have customers and if the margins are right, you’ll survive the high costs. The fact is, a bakery in this kind of neighborhood will struggle unless the menu offerings are greatly expanded. You can only make so much profit on cannolis. And if you’re not offering what they want, you’re obviously going to struggle to get by.

Does a lack of city leadership and unfriendly business policies play a role in the struggle of these businesses? Absolutely. If you’re struggling to get by, the higher taxes and absurd minimum wages don’t help. But if you’re ultimately running a business — big or small — that the tens of thousands of neighbors refuse to visit with enough frequency, you can have the most supportive city government imaginable and it still won’t change the economic reality of your business.

In this case, the neighborhood evolved and an unfortunate victim was this lovely bakery.

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