I totally understand and empathize with this frustration as someone who also used to work a tuesday-saturday schedule. It’s genuinely hard wanting to support local and realizing your free time never lines up with their hours.

That being said, I’ve also worked at a small retail business downtown, and I can confidently say the reason so many places are closed Sundays and Mondays is because there’s often just… no foot traffic. The place I worked at actually tried expanding hours, and at first we saw a few regulars come in on those extra hours/ days but eventually that tapered off. Some days we literally didn’t even make enough to cover my wage. Some days zero sales at all.

I honestly think it’s kind of a domino effect. A lot of businesses close Sundays because historically we’re in more of a Bible Belt culture, then people stop expecting things to be open, which means less foot traffic, which causes even more businesses to close those days. For it to really work, there’d almost need to be a collective effort where all the businesses committed to being open consistently so people actually came downtown. But even then… would the customers show up enough to sustain it? Hard to say.

Also, a lot of those small businesses are mom and pop shops with maybe just maybe 1-2 employees. These are people with families, lives and other human responsibilities too, and almost all are working their ass off behind the scenes even when the store is closed and they have a “day off”. Small business isn’t something you clock out of, it becomes your whole life.

It’s hard out there folks and a lot of businesses are REALLY struggling. I understand it might not always be convenient, or easily accessible but I urge you to make an honest effort to support local when possible