CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Whenever Jason Bristol hears another national retailer announcing shop-til-you-drop holiday hours, he thinks about the workers who will end up working those graveyard and weekend shifts.
He then strolls over to the small shops in Ohio City and Tremont that offer exactly the opposite kind of shopping experience from the big-name stores that will be mobbed with Black Friday throngs next weekend.
Bristol is among thousands of local shoppers who will never be televised shopping on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, because they deliberately spend their money only at local merchants during the holidays.
As a Cohen Rosenthal and Kramer LLP attorney who represents workers abused and mistreated by their employers, Bristol said he's heard too many nightmare tales from his retail clients to buy anything from the chain stores that employed them.
Jason Bristol buys a $100 gift certificate at Market at the Fig in Ohio City on Wednesday.
That's why he shops at Ohio City places like Room Service Boutique, Market at the Fig, Salty not Sweet Boutique, Banyan Tree, and Evie Lou and Lucky's Cafe in Tremont.
He also likes Something Different Gallery on West 25th Street, All Things for You in Old Brooklyn, and The Cleveland Flea this weekend.
"I would rather buy someone a gift certificate for an experience instead of a consumer good from a store," Bristol said. "I would rather let them have a nice night out together at a good restaurant or at a play at Playhouse Square. And if it is something tangible, it'll be something like Ohio City Honey or coffee from Rising Star [Coffee Roasters].
"I like the fact that the gift is always more meaningful, and I always get comments from the people who receive it" that they want more of that coffee or that they've gone back to the restaurant he sent them to, he said.
From his brother-in-law's newborn girl to his 69-year-old mother, Bristol will buy every last holiday gift from a locally owned store.
"My brother and his wife, they absolutely love anything from Ohio City Dog Haven," he said. "The stuff in there is handmade, and a lot of it is Ohio-made. Do you want to go and stand in line at a large retail outlet, or do you want to go to shops like this and shop the way people used to shop?"
Who's open on Thanksgiving:
6 a.m.: Kmart (open 42 hours through midnight Black Friday).
7 a.m.: Big Lots (through midnight), Marc's (select stores)
5 p.m.: Best Buy, JCPenney, Toys 'R' Us (open 30 hours through 11 p.m. Black Friday)
6 p.m.: Kohl's, Macy's, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Sears, Staples, Target, Walmart (doorbusters start at 6 p.m.).
7 p.m.: Five Below.
(Sources: The stores)
Bristol can't believe the number of stores offering doorbusters on Thanksgiving this year, and how long they plan to stay open. Kmart, for example, plans to open at 6 a.m. Thanksgiving and stay open for 42 hours straight, through midnight Black Friday.
"I shop local because I want to support Cleveland's continual renaissance and local economy. I think our local retail movement is where our local food movement was five or 10 years ago," Bristol said. "Two, I will not support businesses that do that to their workers, and three, I think you have to put your money where your mouth is: If you don't want people working 42-hour shifts, then you can't stand in line for that flat-screen TV."
He doesn't buy retailers' explanations that the people working on Thanksgiving raised their hands for those shifts. "Workers no longer have the option to say, 'I don't want to work on Thanksgiving' if their employer needs them to work on Thanksgiving. It just doesn't work that way," he said. "If you polled the workers who are working on that day, you'd find they are not all volunteers."
Bristol discovered one of the best gifts he's ever given at The Cleveland Flea: A 1930s Ateco cake decorating set with a set of metal decorating tips and a vintage cake stand, "both in mint condition, and made better than almost anything made now," he said. "Awesome, awesome reaction."
Stephanie Sheldon, local shopper and founder of The Cleveland Flea
"I've always shopped local"
Stephanie Sheldon started The Cleveland Flea, a local business incubator and marketplace for street food and handmade goods, as a way to showcase the many unique businesses she met through her Indie Foundry branding and marketing firm.
"I've always shopped local," she said. "I've always liked to buy interesting, handmade things. No matter where I am when I'm traveling," she seeks out the local artisans who've actually made what they're selling. "Most of my apartment is furnished from The Flea, and all of my gifts for the holidays will be from The Flea."
Shoppers who come to the holiday-themed Flea on Saturday (10 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), at 6555 Carnegie Ave., will find 75 local vendors offering letterpress holiday cards, vintage winter wear, holiday home decor, screen-printed T-shirts, handmade leather goods, and unique jewelry.
There will also be "homemade pies and hostess gifts, candles and hot cocoa and stuff like that," including foods from La Banana Frita, Pope's Kitchen, The Donut Lab, Mason's Creamery, Nathan's Coffee Roasting, Pitta, The Agrarian Collective, and Philomena Bake Shop, she said.
Outside of The Flea, "I go to the North Union Farmers Market to get stuff for the holidays," Sheldon said. "And I love the West Side Market." Before heading out of town for Thanksgiving or to visit friends, she stocks up on her favorite Cleveland-centric gifts, from Great Lakes Brewing Co.'s Christmas Ale to locally made eggnog to Campbell's Sweets popcorn and other snacks from the market's vendors.
Shopper Jeff Hagan will do all of his holiday shopping at local stores offering locally made items.
"I never go to the big-box stores"
Jeff Hagan, editor of the Oberlin Alumni Magazine at Oberlin College, prefers giving homemade gifts over the kind you buy at a store.
With 13 siblings and a large extended family to buy for, "I never go to the big-box stores -- not just during the holidays, but all the time," he said.
He wants to support local institutions like 78th Street Studios, Bazaar Bazaar, Lake Erie Screw Factory in Lakewood, and The Cleveland Flea, which he says has some of the best hipster crafts and vendors for unique gifts.
"I always check out those places first," Hagan said. Over the years, he has found one-of-a-kind jewelry, maps, purses, photos, and Cleveland-centered artwork in those stores. "It's vaguely nostalgic stuff from all the different places around here. Mid-century antiques, typewriters, stuff like that. Some of them are tchotchkes, but they're also wonderfully-made pieces of art, mostly by local people.
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"I almost always go to Banyan Tree in Tremont. They have basically a guys' day of shopping right before Christmas, where you go in, pop a beer and shop. They lavish attention on you, and they do this beautiful gift-wrapping, whether you spend $20 or $25 or $100s and $100s. I've gotten earrings and bracelets there, and a wonderful sweater for my wife. It's unique stuff you don't see anywhere else.
"The Cleveland Bazaar is somewhere I make sure I hit every year because there's just a lot of cool and clever things there. Another fun place I like to go to is Dean's Restaurant Supply Co. They have fun, inexpensive glasses there, copper mugs for making Moscow mules, 5-gallon cans of Hershey's syrup; it's just a fun place to look around in."
He also frequents Music Saves and Blue Arrow Records stores on Waterloo Road. "It's got a great, old-school feel to it."
"I haven't particularly liked anything that's traditionally at a big-box store," Hagan said. "There are good political reasons to shop unique and shop locally, but it also comes down to the fact that it's just not interesting to me at the store. We already know what's there at Walmart, and it's just not that interesting to me.
"I think you have a higher potential of getting something that's worth hanging on to, and that has a personal meaning, too. For my 15-year-old son, gifts are much more about where he is as a person," he said. "Once you have a house that's already full of stuff, you think: 'I don't want to fill it up with more plastic garbage."
One of Hagan's favorite presents was when "my wife got me a gift certificate to the West Side Market," he said. "So instead of saying, 'Should I buy this or should I not?' I got the big block of expensive cheese from Annemarie's Dairy and the stuffed olives. That was a great gift -- and that money all stayed local."
Shopping Days Left Until Christmas
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