The rain was flowing on Saturday, but so were the shoppers who braved the nasty weather to head downtown for Small Business Saturday.

Lots of people came through the {Re}Stored Pop-Up shop locations and checked out a wide variety of merchandise. Plenty of them also stopped in at established small businesses in downtown, including retail merchants as well as restaurants.

Part of the idea of the pop-up shops is to get small business owners thinking about a brick-and-mortar location — preferably, a currently vacant one in downtown Suffolk. It also connects local small business owners with customers, gets folks looking at vacant spots and more.

It seems the event has been successful. After four years of the event, many of the vacant spots that were used for the event the first year are filled now — so much so, in fact, that only one vacant spot was used for the event this year. The rest of the vendors were in a tent.

But the {Re}Stored event isn’t the only component to Small Business Saturday in Suffolk. There are plenty of small businesses that were happy to see more foot traffic as people shopped for gifts or even went about their business.

As you continue with your Christmas shopping this year — unless you’re one of those people who is already done shopping — please consider supporting a local artist or small business. Amazon and Walmart could lose half their business and still be fine, but an artist or small business will jump for joy to get your business alone. And that’s a really good feeling to know you’ve made someone’s day.

Enjoy the holiday season, and shop small!