Astoria Shops Host Inaugural Week-Long Small Business Crawl

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Astoria’s independent retailers are back for their first-ever week-long shopping crawl, from Monday, April 26, through Sunday, May 2, including online and in-person shopping options to accommodate more local businesses and customers.

Shop Small Astoria, a collective of local businesses organized by The Brass Owl’s Nicole Panettieri, pivoted their annual fall crawl online this past year due to the pandemic, but wanted to have a hybrid shopping model this time around in order to include more businesses.

“We were only able to include 10 stores in the fall,” Panettieri explained to Patch, adding that “it felt like we were leaving out a lot of small businesses that aren’t able to do shipping or operate websites, so we wanted to be able to include them back in and do it safely.”

In order to maintain safe shopping standards amid the pandemic, Shop Small Astoria decided to host the event over the course of seven days instead of a long weekend.

Participating in the crawl is as simple as shopping at one of the 18 participating stores, but there are some other incentives to keep in mind, too.

People who spend at least $10 at eight out of the 18 stores will get a tote filled with goodies and emblazoned with the phrase "Thank you for shopping Astoria.”

You can submit proof of purchases in the form of a receipt or a screenshot to shopsmallastoria@gmail.com, and people who qualify for the treat-filled tote can pick it up at The Brass Owl on 36-19 Ditmars Boulevard.

Since small businesses have been among those hardest-hit by the pandemic, Panettieri said that bringing the crawl back this spring felt even more important than usual.

"A lot of businesses are struggling, and those who have made it through are still pushing through," she said, noting that the Shop Small Astoria crawls have usually been a great way to garner community support for local, small businesses.

And so far, Panettieri was pleased to say, this spring crawl is off to a strong start: In the first day alone one person already qualified for the free tote after shopping at eight of the 18 stores.

Here’s a list of all 18 participating stores, including notes about individual specials, and whether you can shop at the store online, in-person, or both:

• The Astoria Bookshop — Online shopping
• Belief NYC — In-person shopping
• The Brass Owl — In-person and online shopping. 20% off plus a free sticker and free candle for online purchases over $100; 10% plus a free sticker for in-store purchases over $100
• Disco Paws — In-person shopping
• Earth & Me — In-person shopping and store-pickup for online purchases
• Fern Botanica — In-person and online shopping, plus weekend pop-up shops
• Gamestoria NYC — In-person and online shopping. 10% off puzzles and up to 20% board games
• The Gift Box — In-person shopping. Up to 15% off hand printed totes, 10% off select items
• HiFi Records & Cafe — In-person shopping. 10-20% off select items
• Ibari— In-person shopping
• Incasa Decor — In-person and online shopping. 10% and handmade gift for online purchases over $50; 5% off in-store
• Lockwood — In-person and online shopping. Free shipping online and free gift on purchases of more than $75
• LoveDay 31 — In-person shopping. 15% off
• NewtownHQ — In-person and online shopping
• NYC Pet Services — In-person shopping. 10% off all toys and treats
• Petals & Roots — In-person shopping
• QED — In-person and online shopping
• Side B — In-person and online shopping. Raffle with 10% donation to #stopasianhate; Purchase $50 and get a drink or 2 tacos from Tacostoria