Chris Lianos knew a store expansion would help its flow. - Photo by Andrew Firestone

By Andrew Firestone

Walking through a street in Somerville, gazing through the windows one might ask oneself: with all these worries about the local economy, how are these businesses doing?

Well it turns out, not so bad, at least in Davis Square.

“The past ten months here have been great,” said Mike Burke, owner of Comicazi comic and toy shop.

“Everything is going good right now. We’ve only been open since last July, and business has been steadily growing since we’ve been open,” said Mike Brooks, assistant manager at Flatbread Pizza, and Sacco’s Bowling Haven.

“It’s been great. It gets bigger and bigger every year. We’re probably going to have to find a new space to do our bakery production,” said Sarah Ross, owner of Kick-Ass Cupcakes.

“Somerville, it’s the most densely populated city in all of New England, Davis Square is bustling, and there’s plenty to go around,” said David Flannigan, operating partner of Foundry bar and restaurant.

The survey seems to indicate that many service businesses, specialty shops, and restaurants have not even been touched by the economic disasters that have seemingly plagued our country for over a decade. Many of those asked were actually building expansion, had already renovated their stores, and gotten through the first year of their new business unscathed and profitably in the black.

Flanagan, who is an operating partner at the Foundry’s corporate group, the Rocco Restaurant Group, even spilled the skinny on a new more drink-oriented establishment being opened up soon, called “Saloon.”

“I think that as Davis Square becomes an even bigger destination, more and more people will travel [here],” he said.

Another recent business is the Boston Tattoo Company, who also says that they are doing well. They, among other Somerville businesses, won the coveted Best of Boston award from Boston Magazine a month ago.

“We haven’t had too much of a problem. Tattoos and piercings, it’s something personal. People do it to celebrate things. People do it for memorials. People do it just to get their mind off things,” said manager and piercer Brian Mueller, who said that business has continued to rise throughout the recession after the founding of the company a little over a year ago.

The key is transit

What all of these businesses have in common is simple: they are located within short walking-distance of the Red Line, and favorably close to Tufts University. The constant transit of individuals through Somerville via its subway system generates more and more customers every day, while providing local residents with a quick and easy destination to do shopping.

However, just up the hill lies Ball Square. While the many restaurants and local businesses are not in danger of closing, at least one has found it more difficult.

Betsy Lenora, who took over the Blue Cloud art store has found it harder in this economy since she took over the store last April. “As anyone taking over a new business, it’s a lot of work,” she said.

“There’s a lot of details that have to be discovered and dealt with, particularly in this economy, that we’re dealing with. This store seems to be pretty popular in the area, however when people don’t have enough money to spend, it feels like even when you’re doing everything right, there’s still a wall,” she said.

But across the street, Ball Square Fine Wines was able to survive a yearlong renovation to better their store, said Chris Lianos, who performed the renovation in order to better the “flow” of his store.

“With the size of the store that I had, it was just overwhelming, the amount of people who were gathering together in front of the store and in the area we were having a tasting. A lot of people would just walk away,” he said.

With his renovation complete, and a Best of Boston award under his belt, Lianos says he business is not as bad as he thought it would be.

“It’s been OK,” he said. “I can’t complain. The expansion over the year and a half, it was a difficult one, carrying the investment all the way through 2010 to 2011. We’re finally seeing that business is getting slightly better.”

Methodology in the information age

Lianos, Lenora and many others have noted the role of media, especially social media in getting their word out. Setting up facebook.com accounts, having promotions, doing work for non-profits and giving back to the community, these are all in the marketing tool book for any business now.

“Definitely people appreciate that we’re giving back to the community,” said Brooks at Flatbread, who holds many programs and benefits for the people of Somerville. “That’s why they choose here rather than getting a cheaper pizza across the street.”

Ross at Kickass Cupcakes said only tireless work and promotion combined with word-of-mouth and seizing corporate and special events allowed her business to get on top. “We’re talking thousands and thousands of cupcakes [in the last two months], she said.

Comicazi’s Burke, who also maintains a website, said that his store ran on old-fashioned consumerism with a smile. He counted his chief business skills as “staying on top of any problems that arise, sense of community [and a] slightly sarcastic nature of the service.” He added, “It’s all good.”

Local Business First

“Somerville is at a crossroad; it’s very exciting,” said Chamber of Commerce Chairman Ron Bonnie.

“There’s a new Orange Line station coming, the city is repositioning itself to allow for the expansion of the Green Line, between those two projects and Assembly Square’s full development, you’re talking about the possibility of $2 billion being invested in this area at full build-out,” he said. “That’s a massive amount of money.”

“That’s a lot of meals that construction workers are going to eat. That’s a lot of jobs that might relocate to Somerville because they have access to their workers. Somerville has one of the most educated workforces in the entire region. Prior to now, we haven’t had the real space for companies to come in,” he said.

Somerville has suffered in the past, losing growing powerhouses like iRobot and XL Hybrids automotive innovators due to a lack of space for development of such businesses.

Somerville continues to act as a feeder for workers in Boston and outlying areas, as there are only half as many jobs in Somerville as there are potential employees. While unemployment rests well below the national average, it remains to be seen whether or not Somerville can become a new jobs hub.

Joe Grafton, Executive Director Somerville Local First, a non-profit that supports growth in business that is “local, fair, green” said that the city’s future economy rested on supporting local businesses.

“There’s a growing body of sound research that shows that local economies thrive and communities and residents thrive when locally-owned, independent businesses are succeeding,” he said.

“Local businesses create more jobs and create them faster than any other businesses in our economy. What we really encourage folks to do is look for any way that they can to try and shift their shopping from non-local businesses to local businesses and that can go anywhere from food to banking to local service providers to local health providers. We’re blessed in Somerville to have a vibrant local economy for many wonderful businesses and the way they can best thrive is when we in the community support them,” he said.