As shoppers look to get all the holiday deals -- local businesses encouraged people to shop local this Small Business Saturday, Nov. 28. Smaller businesses need community support now more than ever as local spots close down or adapt due to COVID-19.

It's unclear how many people will go shopping during Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and the rest of the post-Thanksgiving weekend — what with COVID-19 still surging in Wisconsin. But merchants are doing what they can to attract shoppers into stores or online.

Last Friday, beloved East Side mainstay Hooligan's suffered a fire, the second notable restaurant fire this month after the cheel in Thiensville lost its restaurant due to a blaze on Nov. 8. Thankfully no one was hurt in the East Side incident, but the building's interior and exterior took significant damage according to reports.

This July, AARP Wisconsin awarded Milwaukee’s East Side Business Improvement District #20 a Small Dollar, Big Impact Grant to invest in the East Side Art Lot project. This $1,000 award helped fund the creation of a safe outdoor space for the community.

In February, Door County’s Island Orchard Cider announced it would open Pomona Cider Co. on Milwaukee’s East Side at 2163 N. Farwell Ave. The company said it had plans to renovate the 2,100-square-foot building into a tasting room that would also serve a limited array of craft beer and wine and would use a wood-fired oven to make appetizers, including flatbreads.

The East Side Art Lot, a new creative public space located in the heart of Milwaukee's East Side neighborhood, will offer a special "Live At The Lot" event featuring drinks, live music, socially-distanced seating and access to 15 nearby restaurants.

This ultra fun 1980s themed snack bar serves up a scrumptious menu of elevated (and sometimes shareable) bites. Originally in Walker's Point, the restaurant moved into bigger, bolder East Side digs earlier this year; unfortunately, COVID-19 has prevented all of us from enjoying the new double-decker art-filled restaurant to its fullest extent.

Two Milwaukee artists and one Stevens Point artist will paint murals in September at Milwaukee’s premier street art destination, Black Cat Alley. Black Cat Alley is a public arts destination owned by the East Side BID, and managed by the artist-led group that founded it in 2016.