Several small businesses in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn are struggling to stay afloat, making job stability hard to come by for those looking for work at local shops.

Photo credit: whitneyinchicago

In the middle of a weekday afternoon visit to the neighborhood, some stores were shuttered.

“A lot of the little stores, they open and they close,” says Roosevelt Community Bank manager Claire Byrnes. She says that many residents who work in Manhattan often choose to shop in Manhattan.

It doesn’t help that the residential Brooklyn neighborhood is nearly an hour away from the more bustling part of the city. The major avenues in Bay Ridge have decades-old storefronts housing old-fashioned bakeries, hardware stories, 99-cent stores, banks and real estate offices.

A few small businesses have caught onto the trends that keep younger residents spending in their own neighborhoods, however.

Business is booming at the Little Cupcake Bakery and Bikram Bay Ridge.

Cupcake shops have popped up all over Manhattan in the last ten years or so as New Yorkers opted to spend their money on small, simple pleasures as opposed to larger splurges in an ailing economy.

And Bikram Yoga, which involves a series of poses and stretches performed at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, has become a popular sweat-inducing, calorie-burning workout in Manhattan recently as well.

Some pet stores have managed to stay in business too, noted CityLimits.org last year.  Even in a recession, New Yorkers have continued spending money on their pets.

What other kinds of popular small businesses do you think might thrive in Bay Ridge?