 Thank you for joining us as we kick off Small Business Week. We're so happy to have you and we're so happy about the activities that the City of Columbia is going to be doing this week. I'm going to turn it over now to the Mayor. Thank you. Good afternoon. Welcome. What a beautiful day. Excited here to be joined by the Chamber, our city center partnership, our small businesses to celebrate Small Business Week. As you know, we've adopted the open for business slogan. And that means we're open for investments. We're open for ideas and we're open for innovation. But what we really want to do is support all of our small businesses throughout our community. Doesn't matter what corner you're in, we want to make it easy for you to make an investment and to start your dream. And to be quite honest, since January, we've had 384 small businesses apply for small business licenses in Columbia. So there's a lot going on in every category that you could think of from professional services to hospitality to consulting to small retail. So we're really excited about what's going on here in Columbia. And obviously, we have our economic development office, our Office of Business Opportunity all here to help us take all the opportunities that we have available, bundling them up and helping you start your business. So we're really excited about that opportunity. And as we know, we have to start off our day with proclaiming Small Business Week 2022. We have a proclamation that we'll present. We'll present this to Melissa and to Matt and Carl and Scott Middleton, who's here today. This is a proclamation declaring this Small Business Week in Columbia, South Carolina. So we encourage everyone today and the rest of the week to spend time supporting our small businesses and continuing to allow them to grow and prosper here in our community. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. So people come on from all over to build small businesses in Columbia. And we're so excited about that. As you know, small business and what's great about South Carolina is a Palmetto State. We have more women-owned businesses than any. We're in the top five of women-owned businesses in the country. So I'm proud to be in the top five. And we have, obviously, more women-owned businesses in Columbia growing every day. We've witnessed that on Two Knotts Road. We've witnessed that on Greystone. We've witnessed that on Colonial Life. And of course, on Main Street just the other day as we celebrated Uncle Willie's opening. As a small business owner, I have been through the difficulties. I understand what it takes and the risk. And we're always the last ones to get paid and the first ones through the door. But there's a thrill and excitement of being an entrepreneur and how that grows in the role model that you show. So every time we have a business opening here in Columbia, we're excited about it because it shows folks there are opportunities here. And we're going to continue to take the hurdles out of the way to make it simple and easy for you to chase your dreams in Columbia, South Carolina. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Carl Blackstone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And on behalf of the chamber, we appreciate you very much. You recognize in Small Business Week, and this is one of the highlights every year, to really, I mean, we spend a lot of time talking with small business owners around this community. And the fact that we get to recognize them the first week of May is important. South Carolina is special in the sense that we have over 445,000 small businesses across the state. 99% of South Carolina businesses are small businesses. Now, it's the lifeblood of our community. It's the backbone. And we've talked about that for a long time. But it's important that we recognize them. It's important that we value them and spend time, money, with these small businesses in this community. And so as we look to continue to grow, as the mayor said, and we're thrilled that we're open for business, South Carolina, small businesses, we've seen an increase of over 30% over the last two decades. That's the largest increase anywhere in the country. So South Carolina is a great place to do business. Columbia is a fantastic place to work, live, and play. And so we celebrate with the mayor, with our friends here, to recognize small businesses. And please go out and support them this week. Thanks. Thank you. Turn it over to Matt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor and Carl, for all the great work you do for this community. And what a beautiful day it is on Main Street. Main Street, Columbia, really is the best of Main Street America. It's very exciting to see the small businesses that are able to start small and grow and thrive and prosper in our community, largely because of some of the comments the mayor made about how the city is there to support them and to help them with their growth. The last couple of years have been tough. It's been a rough patch for some of our small business. But the resilience and the flexibility of our merchants has been incredible. Scott Middleton is here with us today. And I think he's going to say a couple of words after I do. But Scott and his companies are just a great example of how you can thrive and change and be flexible. You know, if going left doesn't work, you go right. And they do something else. And they do it so well. And that's just an example of what we've seen in Columbia in the past few years. We did have a few businesses closed over the past couple of years. But we actually had more open than closed. And that's just wonderful. And we're very proud of that. So I just wanted to recognize the small businesses today. And thank you for making our community and our Main Street what it is. Thank you very much. This year, the city will recognize five local businesses during the small business week. And obviously, the first one we want to recognize in local businessman, Scott Middleton. Scott, please join me. Scott only has an investment. We're going to rename the 1600 block, the Middleton block. As you look around, we have the main course. We have the Grand. We have Smoked. We have, I'm drawing a blank. Good Life Cafe. Good Life Cafe. There's so many businesses over here, along with my physician's office, which is right down here. You haven't been there, revived. But also, their corporate offices are all here located. They have made an investment. But what's great about that investment is they've done it mainly through food and music, my two favorite things in the world. As my grandmother said, between food at the table, you can talk about any issue with anybody because people are happy when their stomach's full. And Scott has had a found a way to bring everybody together. This is a great example of how our community is a whole. Diversity all the way across. The board comes here into our 1600 block and takes advantage of the great entertainment opportunities and dining opportunities that are here. And with that, Scott, we wanted to give you a proclamation today for the main course. And y'all have to excuse me. I gotta hold it out here because I want my glasses. But the main course was established in 2020 and is known for providing popular culinary favorites and exclusive family fun for all ages. The main course is a four story entertainment space that offers diverse live entertainment, golf, award-winning beverages, signature desserts, and a piano bar for you, those who really wanna relax. Scott Middleton, the owner of the main course is an innovative entrepreneur that has greatly contributed to the restoration and vibrant architectural and entrepreneurial spirit of the city. And I think that's a very important part. The entrepreneurial and architectural preservation and experiences because that's what you see on Main Street. A mix of not only old buildings, but new investment. And that's what we're looking through across our city. So with that, I wanted to recognize the main course is our 2022 small business spotlight honoree and congratulate you on your continued success. Thank you much. And I'd be reminisced before I let Scott take the podium if we didn't go ahead and talk to about, it's not just investment downtown that Scott and their family are doing. They're working on a brewery in North Main in an old historic warehouse, stone manufacturing, the place that made the first boxers with elastic band just so I do know my history there. Which was incredible, but they're making a tremendous investment there that not only gonna provide jobs, but entertainment, but allowing us to grow our city down the Main Street corridor into North Main and really bringing a boost to the economy in that area. Scott? Well, thank you. Thank you, I appreciate this so much. You know, and even though we have a lot of businesses, they're all very small businesses and all very local and are run local by each and every one. But I will say that as a small business owner, the one thing that I have always learned is that you have to be able to move very quickly based on what's going on in the marketplace and what's going on in the city. So when we came down in 2014 and renovated this building standing behind us, it was actually corporate offices. It was office complex and we brought in a small restaurant, Michael's Cafe and Catering, that struggled quite a bit because there was just nothing else on this block and we knew that in order for that restaurant to be successful and to have what we would, we'd have to continue to renovate across the way. But we've gone from having a pharmacy and a small cafe in here to having two beautiful stages for live music that take place almost every single day and the Players Club on the third and fourth floor of the building where we actually play golf almost every single day I'm up there with somebody and we're doing virtual golf right here in downtown Main Street. So just say we appreciate the creativity of all the small businesses, get out there, you work hard, you live hard and I think you've got a successful life. And so I just wanna thank the city, the chamber, but also city center partnership for all that they've done to be able to encourage the small businesses here and to support us and to help us to continue to grow. So thanks Daniel, we appreciate it much. The other business that we're highlighting during our 2020 Small Business Week celebration on Thursday, May 5th will be Ms. Karen of Karen's Kitchen and Catering. If you haven't had Ms. Karen's food, hold on, give her a call, I'm telling you, you'll wanna know how do I get home and take a nap because it's so good. Mr. Dionne from Seven Sunday Live, who has, what a great individual that I've learned to get to know over these months and I know he does a lot of production here at the main course, but he's been doing projects with the city and very innovative production gentlemen who, his ideas are incredible and I think you're gonna see a lot of great things coming from him. Lance Brown, here we are, Rhino Medical, a company that came in in the middle of the pandemic, found a need and has created national attention, was one of the few places that you actually could go find a home test and had it available to the general public if they wanted one or 20 with no limits and really has made a big difference and we thank you Lance for his continued investment in our community. And Mr. Landry Phillips of the Regal Lounge, these are five outstanding businesses that define Columbia and we need to continue to support them so don't hold back, take this week, there are hundreds, thousands of small businesses in our community, pick up the phone, make a reservation, call them for their services, get their accounting services, go get a massage, pick up lunch, have an opportunity to really engage with the small business in our community and let's make this the most successful week that any of these businesses have seen. And with that, I will hand it over to Ms. Lindler to wrap us up. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And I'm just gonna close it out. Thank you again for coming. There are still opportunities for everyone to enjoy. Small Business Week, as the mayor said, make sure you shop local, go out to eat. Some of us probably do that more than we shop but enjoy our local businesses. They're here, they're thriving. We have our Small Business Week celebration on Thursday at the Medallion Center. It starts at 11 o'clock and it's not too late to register. You can go to our website at www.obo.citycolumbiasc.gov. Sorry, obo.columbiasc.gov. And you can also call us at 803-545-3950 if you want to register and we'll register you. So thank you so much. Have a great day.