Local Businesses Adapt to COVID-19

Andrea McGriff was already a big customer at Hobby Horse, a children’s clothing store, before she was even the owner. She says “It was just a one of a kind store and it had the type of clothing and stuff that I loved for my own children. Then it just became kind of a passion; I just loved everything about it!”   Since the start of COVID, McGriff reveals that she understands the restlessn...

Nader Jubran “practically grew up in business”. He started as a jeweler and later took on his father’s pawn shop. “It's different, you know you run into different types of people every single day.” Jubran said.     Pawn Shops have a long history themselves. Jubran reveals “The journey that Christopher Columbus took, the Queen actually pawned her jewels in order to pay for the ...

Chef Natasha Burton is a classically trained chef who took up cooking as a hobby after the recession in 2008. She decided to make cooking a career and has opened many businesses since then, her first being in 2012. Burton graduated culinary school in 2011 and decided to pursue baking as a career, a hobby she has loved since age six.  Burton previously lived in Dallas, Texas and moved to Jacksonville to pursue both of her passions: her pie shop, Mixed Filling...

Owner of 3 Sweet Ladies Bakery Linda Brown took up baking as a hobby and says, “I use baking as a therapy” and a getaway from normal life.   At the start of her bakery, she was selling above the “golden number,” or the ideal financial marker a business needs to make to make a profit. Brown says sales declined throughout Covid-19 and contemplated when to stay open. “There's som...