As most of us wind down from the buzz of Black Friday, small businesses throughout the state are ramping up for what is quite possibly many business owners’ favorite day of the year: Small Business Saturday. The annual event, which was first started by American Express in 2010, has since turned into a nationwide movement. According to American Express, an estimated 95 million people shopped at small independent businesses in 2015 spending $16.2 billion, a jump of nearly $2 billion from 2014.
Tennessee is home to more than 140,000 businesses that employ less than 50 people, which represents 94 percent of all Tennessee business establishments. These businesses employ a total of 977,657, accounting for 40 percent of Tennessee’s private sector employment.
To celebrate Small Business Saturday, we took a trip to Dayton, in the Southeast region of the state, to visit a few of the businesses located in the downtown district. Check out this video, which focuses on Cumberland Café and Monkey Town Brewing Company, and see how small businesses impact communities across Tennessee.
