Some might think that the Detroit business owners are more cutthroat, but Toby Barlow writes in the
New York Times that it's one business doing their best to help the other.
Excerpt:
Now, we are all raised to think of business as a sort of vicious
spy-versus-spy, cutthroat activity where every competing establisment
is out to stick a shiv into the other. You’d think that this kind of
blood thirst would be even worse in Detroit, which -- with Jimmy Hoffa's
disappearance, Eminem's lyrics and our old, quaint Devil's Night
tradition of burning down houses -- has acquired a certain reputation
for toughness. But Charles discovered that the neighboring Detroit
restaurants actually had quite a different reaction to a new competitor.
The
owner of Slows, a barbecue place nearby, not only helped him get his
permits, but also built tabletops for him at no cost. Jordi, the owner
of the Cafe con Leche coffee shop, hooked him up with his coffee
supplier. Dave, who had recently opened Supino Pizza, even dropped
everything one day to get the paper Charles needed for his credit card
machine.
Most surprisingly, just as Charles was starting up,
Torya Blanchard was opening another downtown crepe place called Good
Girls Go to Paris. Instead of treating Charles like a rival, Torya
happily exchanged recipes with him, even coming in one day to help make
his batter, an act of creperie solidarity that would surely have made
Detroit’s founder, Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac, extremely proud.
"They want their neighbor to make it," he says. "It's different from anywhere I've been. Here, your success is their success."
Read the entire article
here.
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