One of Bay Ridge’s biggest business-boosting groups got into the holiday spirit on Monday, Dec. 5 at its annual holiday party — hosted, of course, at one of its beloved local businesses.
Members and heads of Merchants of Third Avenue came together at the Greenhouse Cafe to celebrate a year of successes along the thoroughfare, and the borough’s continued recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was good,” Merchants of Third Avenue President Dan Texeira told Brooklyn Paper.
Texeira estimated that close to 40 local leaders and business owners were in attendance at the holiday party — many of them new to the area.
“[There] were a lot of new faces,” the merchants association president said, perhaps signaling that business is booming again in Bay Ridge and beyond.
As in years past, the holiday party served as a collection for The Olivia Boccuzzi Foundation‘s annual toy drive. The foundation was founded by locals Enza Boccuzzi and her husband Frank in November 2012 — just three months after their nearly-three-year-old daughter Olivia lost an 11-month battle with a PNET brainstem tumor.
The Merchants of Third Avenue’s holiday party came on the heels of an exciting weekend on the strip. On Saturday, Dec. 3, locals cut the ceremonial ribbon on not one but two new Third Avenue businesses: Be Yoga and L’angolo di Palermo Italian Delicatessen.
Those in attendance at Greenhouse Cafe were happy to see each other – many for the first time in-person since the business group’s 2019 holiday party. Celebrants shared stories of the last two years, as well as new ideas — and nearly all expressed hope for a full return to pre-pandemic times for their businesses and families.
Additional reporting by Jada Camille
