CLEVELAND — After a decade in business selling local meats to Northeast Ohio, Saucisson, an artisan butcher shop in Slavic Village, is closing its doors on Saturday.
The shop, which also offers lunches and classes, opened their brick and mortar location in 2017, after spending four years selling products via farmers markets. Wednesday will officially mark a decade in business for the shop.
In a Facebook announcement, the Saucisson team announced the difficult decision to close.
Owner and operator Melissa Khoury said she discovered her love of meat while working in the food industry, recognizing the power a meal can have.
“It’s a common denominator, we all eat,” she said. “So it doesn’t matter your race, it doesn’t matter religion, we all eat. And so you can really come together and make friends over a meal.”
Over the course of the past decade, she’s seen that power in action through the relationships and community she formed in her shop, and in the Slavic Village neighborhood. Khoury also said the Cleveland small business scene was extremely supportive.
“It has just been nonstop opportunities, which is fantastic,” she said. “And I think when you start a small business, you can hope for a quarter of that opportunity to come, and we were really, really grateful that it showed up for us.”
The recognition showed up, too. Saucisson has been featured in national magazines, took on celebrity chef Bobby Flay, and traveled to the West Coast to cook with chef Michael Mina.
However, despite the successes, the small business, like many others, ran into challenges. Khoury said at the beginning of the pandemic, business was strong as their shop didn’t encounter the same supply chain issues as the big box stores, quickly switching to an online ordering system and growing their business. However, once life returned to normal and people returned to their previous habits, she said business slowed. At the same time, she said business from restaurants also slowed during and after the pandemic.
“The pandemic was rough on all of us, and we’re still feeling that,” she said. “Rising costs, labor shortages, all of those things, it’s a story repeated all over the world, which is terrible. But then there’s also so many other layers that go along with that, and small business burnout – it’s real. It’s absolutely real. So with everything combined, including a little bit of health issues this year, it just kind of presented itself in a way that if we were going to continue to fight, it wouldn’t be in the same capacity in which we have grown to love and respect how we operated our business.”
Megan Kim, executive director of COSE, said she has heard that small businesses are closing, though said it’s hard to say exactly how many, as small businesses don’t always announce they are shutting doors the same way larger corporations do.
“With interest rates being so incredibly high, it is hard for businesses to get capital, and certainly talent being another one,” Kim said as to reasons why some small businesses may be closing. “A lot of our smaller companies are competing for talent with the large companies, and with a low unemployment rate and an already tight labor market, it’s harder for these smaller businesses to get the workforce, the team members, the individuals that they need to make sure that they can work on running the company versus working in the business.”
She also referenced challenges coming from the pandemic.
However, Kim also said there has been growth in the number of small businesses that are just starting. She said there have been 156,000 new business starts this year in the state.
“We continue to see a record number of small business starts, which is a really positive thing. We’ve seen that consistently since the start of the pandemic,” she said. “From an Ohio Secretary of State filing perspective, in October, we saw about 14,500 new business starts, and that was about 400 over last year, and we are on track to exceed records.”
Kim also touched on the importance of supporting small businesses, and said there are resources such as grants and organizations like SCORE that can help provide support.
“This is the lifeblood of our economy,” Kim said. “You know, 98% of the businesses here in the region are small companies, they employ a big part of our workforce, so making sure that we’re supporting those companies, people are keeping our dollars local, has a significant impact.”
Khoury also emphasized the importance of supporting small businesses not just around the holidays, but year-round.
“If you really love a small business, cheerlead them every single moment you can. Not just when it’s convenient,” she said.
Khoury said she’s taking a job with the state, but will continue to champion her much-beloved Slavic Village neighborhood, encouraging the community to continue to support small businesses, and go outside their normal routines to explore new businesses and neighborhoods.
“We’re able to say, yes, it is sad, but come celebrate with us! Celebrate everything that we’ve done, celebrate all the times that we’ve made an epic meal for you and your family, or had a great conversation,” she said. “Those are the things that we need to remember, is that there are humans behind these businesses, and trust we are sad.”