Small businesses, big community: Young Dartmouth entrepreneurs embrace civic life
Independent Portland Street shops aren’t just selling goods — they’re offering spaces for connection, conversation, and skill development
For a growing number of young entrepreneurs, downtown Dartmouth isn’t just a place to open a business – it’s a place to carve out community.
Across Portland Street, a new generation of independent business owners is creating what sociologists call “third place,” places beyond home and work where people can gather, connect, and build relationships. Much has been written about the decline of third places (including by the Post), but downtown Dartmouth has seemingly bucked this trend in recent years and is increasingly a place to hang out.
Tim Rissesco, CEO of the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission, has watched that transformation unfold over the past two decades.
“Downtown Dartmouth is sort of the front porch for Dartmouth,” Risseco told the Post. “Without the independent businesses and the local businesses that you see in downtown Dartmouth, you could be any town anywhere. They really demonstrate the character of the community and strengthen us as a city.”
For Sheri Williams, senior manager of entrepreneurship at Nova Scotia Community College, that community-focused approach reflects a broader shift among young entrepreneurs.
“The working world right now is quite transient,” Williams said. “This gives people control to be able to direct their own path and their own journey.”
As Williams explained, today’s entrepreneurs are finding success by collaborating with one another, sharing resources, and building strong local networks.
To get the scoop on this trend, the Post spoke with three young entrepreneurs who are working to define the next generation of business on Portland Street.
Stitch & Knit: Building the fabric of community
When Meg Gellatly moved to Dartmouth four years ago, it was to pursue a master’s degree at NSCAD. She had no plan to become a business owner.
As she settled into the community, one thing stood out. After Dartmouth Yarns closed in 2018, there was no longer a dedicated fibre arts shop on the Dartmouth side of the harbour.
For someone whose life had long revolved around textiles, the absence felt significant. From there, Stitch & Knit began.
“It felt like a way for me to do something with my life that was related to my studies, but also fitting with this community.”
Just over a year after opening on Portland Street, Gellatly said the people she’s met through it have made the challenges of opening a business worthwhile.
“Craft is based on knowledge being handed down — between generations, between communities.”
—Meg Gellatly, Stitch & Knit
“It’s extremely rewarding when you start getting the regulars coming in, when you start having people show up frequently for the craft circles, starting to sign up to the classes and repeat sign-ups for classes, and people who value the community that we’re trying to build.”
That sense of community was sewn into Stitch & Knit from the beginning.
Alongside yarn, fabric and sewing supplies, the shop offers weekly craft circles, sewing classes, monthly queer craft nights, and pay-what-you-can sewing machine rentals for people who don’t have access to equipment or workspace at home.
For Gellatly, those programs are just as important as the products on the shelves.
“Craft is based on knowledge being handed down — between generations, between communities,” she said.
She believes that tradition has become harder to find in some crafting spaces, where knowledge can feel exclusive rather than shared.
“Craft is finicky in that you think it’s welcoming, and there are parts that aren’t,” Gellatly said. “There are lots of organizations and lots of spaces that want to gatekeep knowledge.”
Creating dedicated spaces for people who haven’t always felt welcome is one way of changing that.
“It’s really important to carve out that time that is just for them.”
That philosophy also reflects the way Gellatly sees Dartmouth itself.
While Halifax offers its own creative spaces, she believes Dartmouth has developed a distinct identity – one built on independent businesses supporting one another, an environment she has “not found replicated anywhere else.”
Gellatly said one of the biggest surprises of opening Stitch & Knit has been the support she’s received from neighbouring business owners, who have shared advice, offered encouragement, and helped her navigate the realities of running a small business.
“I’ve learned that I don’t have to do everything,” she said. “There are great people around who can help me.”
Churned: A recipe for collaboration
When Bailey Vernon hands someone a scoop of plant-based ice cream, she’s often serving more than dessert.
“Someone coming in and saying they haven’t had ice cream in 10 years and just being so ecstatic that they can not only have one, but have so many choices,” Vernon said. “I feel like ice cream just brings a lot of happiness and nostalgia to people.”
Before opening the Portland Street shop, Vernon spent two summers selling vegan popsicles through her business, Peachy Keen Pops. The experience confirmed what she’d been considering for years: “I really loved working for myself and working with food and getting to talk to customers.”
She also noticed a gap in the local market.
“There was no one just doing dairy-free ice cream,” Vernon said. “It was something that I wanted, so I felt like other people would probably want that as well.”
From the beginning, Vernon envisioned Churned as something larger than a place to buy dessert.
Throughout the year, her shop has hosted a micro-concert, a behind-the-scenes ice cream making workshop, a café pop-up, and collaborations with other local businesses. While some events help attract customers during slower months, they also reflect what Vernon said she values most.
“In my personal life, I’m really big on community and people,” she said. “I want it to be a space where people feel comfortable and have fun.”
Owning a business, she said, has given her a platform to help strengthen the neighbourhood around her.
“So many people supported me along the way,” said Vernon. “It’s fun to be able to support other businesses as well.”
She sees those relationships as essential to building a thriving downtown.
“Why would I expect someone to spend money here if I’m not spending money on other local businesses as well?” she said. “I want the city to thrive and I want all the businesses to thrive along with mine. You kind of got to give what you get.”
While she hopes to keep creating new flavours and growing the business, Vernon’s ambitions are intentionally modest.
“Just to be sustainable and stick around,” she said.
Curious Goose: Honing the next generation through craftsmanship
When Dallas Hendricks moved to Dartmouth in 2024, he knew he wanted his next chapter to look different.
After years of moving across North America for work, including nearly a decade in Colorado, he wasn’t interested in another job that kept him disconnected from the place he lived.
“I wanted to do something that was more community-focused,” Hendricks told the Post. “Working with people that I actually live near, and doing things that, if it weren’t for the paycheck, I’d actually choose to be doing.”
That vision became Curious Goose, a community woodworking studio Hendricks co-founded with his sister-in-law, Talis Apud-Martinez, on Portland Street in December 2025.
For years, the pair had talked about starting something together. Apud-Martinez, who had spent much of her career building community through non-profit work and now supports entrepreneurs through Dalhousie University’s Emera ideaHUB, shared a video she had seen online of children taking woodworking classes. The idea sparked something.
Together, they envisioned more than a woodworking shop. They wanted to create a place where children, families, and adults could learn practical skills, spend time together, and meet their community.
“This is a space that is ideally filled with people that want to be learning and making and getting together with friends.”
—Dallas Hendricks, Curious Goose
Since opening, Curious Goose has grown into a busy community workshop. Children’s woodworking programs reached capacity within months, while weekly carving clubs, social woodworking nights, and a newly launched woodworking guild have brought adults through the doors as well.
Hendricks has also begun building custom displays, signs, and fixtures of other local businesses, creating another way to contribute to downtown Dartmouth.
Hendricks said the challenges of his first few months of entrepreneurship have been outweighed by the moments that happen around the workbench.
“There were a few younger kids that I could tell were just timid,” he said. “Watching them settle in, get comfortable and curious, is definitely the most rewarding part.”
For Hendricks, community is a central pillar of what makes Curious Goose work.
“This is a space that is ideally filled with people that want to be learning and making and getting together with friends,” he said. “This is an organization that depends on people wanting it to be here and supporting it.”
Opening on Portland Street was a deliberate choice rooted in the kind of community Hendricks and Apud-Martinez wanted to be part of.
“We didn’t consider any other places,” Hendricks said. “We wanted to be in the community where the people are.”
And since opening, Hendrick’s said he’s noticed more families and young children spending time on Portland Street.
“It just seems like there’s a growing desire and focus on getting back to things that feel a bit more personal and crafty. And it’s exciting to be a part of that movement.”
Shaping downtown Dartmouth together
Although their businesses couldn’t be more different, Meg Gellatly, Bailey Vernon, and Dallas Hendricks arrived in downtown Dartmouth with remarkably similar goals.
Each saw an opportunity to create something they felt was missing. Each chose Portland Street because of its network of independent businesses and supportive community. And each has transformed their business into a third place: a space where people come not only to buy locally, but to stay awhile.
Williams believes this collaborative approach is becoming a defining feature of young entrepreneurship. As entrepreneurs share resources, ideas, and customers, they’re creating businesses that are stronger together than they would be alone.
And for Rissesco, this collaboration gives downtown Dartmouth its identity.
“They shape the values of downtown, of supporting people with challenges in our community, supporting the environment and supporting sustainability,” he said. “These are the kinds of values that come out of our shopkeepers. And that all comes out of the character of our business owners.”
For a new generation of entrepreneurs, building a business means building that porch where people can gather, connect, and feel at home in their community.