50.0°,
Fair Outdoor shopping spree coming to Glen Head
19 local businesses to offer discounts April 23
What better way to celebrate the changing of the seasons than with an outdoor shopping spree? Glen Head has just such an event planned on April 23.
Shop Glen Head is a website promoting local businesses. For the past decade, Deborah Gordon, a former small business owner and the website’s founder, has been championing local businesses in town.
“I have seen … how people need to be aware to shop local in the community,” Gordon said. “So I wanted to create something in Glen Head to bring the business owners together, to spread awareness, so more people come to Glen Head to shop.”
Thus the idea for the first annual Glen Head Spring Shopping Spree was born.
The village hosted a similar event every fall from 2013 to 2018. But it was canceled amid a hurricane threat in 2019, and by the pandemic for the past two years. Gordon, a former president of the Gold Coast Business Association, took it upon herself to organize a new shopping spree when it looked like the old one wouldn’t be held again, due in part to the ongoing battle with Covid.
Gordon and volunteers asked village business owners to take part, and 19 shops and stores signed on. Several plan to move their operations from their stores onto the sidewalk to give the village and the event a bazaar-like atmosphere. Some will also have stands in the Glen Head Motors parking lot.
Ronnie Thyben, a volunteer and the president of the Glen Head Garden Club, said that much of the preliminary work involved getting the word out. For the past few weeks she has been handing out fliers and making calls. But Gordon’s leadership, she said, pulled the effort together.
“She’s a dynamo,” Thyben said. “I don’t know how this would happen without her. When you think of all the work she’s done, just out of love for the community, it’s really amazing.”
The businesses will offer a wide range of goods, from hardware — stores like Glen Head Hardware — to a variety of food — restaurants like Ciro’s Pizzeria of the North Shore and Choppers Burger Bar. All will have discounts that day for anyone who says “Shop Glen Head,” including salon Lash Lure, which will offer $50 off a set of eyelashes for any new customers.
Gemelli Gourmet Market North is one business that will take part. One of its co-owners, Adriana Schutz, said there are plans to barbecue steaks and sausages on a grill and treat customers to Gemelli family recipes and their specialty barbecue sauce.
“Everything is made in-house,” Schutz said. “We’re going to have our homemade barbecue sauce on display and on discount.”
According to Schutz, who runs the business with her sister and brother, events like these are important for the local economy, and particularly for family-owned businesses like theirs. “It gives the community a sense of what’s going on on the street,” she said. “This brings in a lot of foot traffic, a lot of people who haven’t visited the store before.”
One of Shop Glen Head’s sponsors, Celeste Gullo, an Allstate insurance agent who lives in Glen Cove but works in Glen Head, agreed that the event would be important for local businesses, and added that she was proud to contribute.
“It’s so great to get to see the faces behind the businesses,” Gullo said. “It brings a humanity to these businesses, who throughout Covid showed up every single day to keep their doors open.”
