By Councilwoman Maria Baier

One of the most common suggestions made by residents of Phoenix District 3 is that we try to bring trendy restaurants and shops into our neighborhoods, á la Le Grande Orange over on 40th Street and Campbell Avenue.

What a great idea! And yes, let’s try! Or, stated more accurately, let’s keep trying! After all, we’ve had some fantastic successes already with hot spots like The Market Bistro (southeast corner of Seventh Street and Thunderbird Road), Corbin’s (Central Avenue south of Dunlap Road), Bombero’s (Central Avenue south of Dunlap Road), Grinders (southeast corner of Central Avenue and Dunlap Road), Basis (northwest corner of 7th Street and Thunderbird Road), Il Posto (northwest corner of 7th Street and Mountain View Road), and, of course, Salute (southwest corner of 7th Street and Thunderbird Road).

They are all great places with great menus—and they’re close to home. Plus, we have lots of wonderful “comfort food” havens like El Bravo (8338 N. 7th St.), Pinkey’s Café (northwest corner of 7th Street and Thunderbird Road), and The Eye Opener (524 W. Hatcher Road).

I have been spending quite a lot of time since January with successful businesses in District 3 to try to get a better sense of why they are doing well and how we can keep them from moving elsewhere.

The one answer everyone gives is to do everything possible to encourage people to patronize businesses they want to keep around. For retail businesses, like shops and restaurants, the calculus is relatively simple: If you make a profit, you stay.

From what I have learned, there is no substitute for that simple principle. In terms of business retention, you vote with your dollars. No amount of begging or cajoling from a politician or a landlord or anyone could convince an unprofitable business to stick around for long.

So, we really shape our own destiny when we are making choices about where to spend money. If we perpetually pass by great restaurants or stores in our neighborhoods to travel to “new” places in town, the message we send to our own neighborhood business is that our neighborhood can’t support them—so it’s time to move.

If we resist the temptation to journey far from home to eat and shop, we are much more likely to keep great businesses close to home.

And there is another advantage as well. The quality of our most vital city services, such as police, fire, parks and streets, rely heavily on sales taxes. So, by shopping close to home (or, in this case, anywhere within city limits), we can be sure that the city sales taxes we pay are invested in making Phoenix residents’ lives better in tangible ways. If we travel outside city limits to spend, the sales tax generated by your purchases will go to whatever municipality you are in.

As a way to encourage our neighborhood businesses to stay put, I plan to feature “cool” spots in D3 as often as possible in this column. If you have a hidden (or, for that matter, famous) treasure in your neighborhood that you would like to keep around, please let me know about it, and we will feature it in an upcoming column—maybe even drum up a little business—and help build a customer base that says to the owners, “stay where you are ... we can support you.”

You can send me info about your favorite D3 “cool” spot to council.district.3@phoenix.gov. Can’t wait to see where you send me! Thanks.

Councilmember Maria Baier represents Phoenix City Council District 3, which includes parts of North Central Phoenix. You can reach her at 602-262-7441 or via e-mail at council.district.3@phoenix.gov.