When Caroline Weaver signed the lease for her new Brooklyn apartment, the relief of surviving New York City's brutal real estate market was short-lived. The next task: furnishing the place. Her first instinct was to shop online, but the thought of waiting for deliveries and unboxing endless packages seemed exhausting. Moving to New York, where streets are lined with countless stores, she realized she didn't know where to find everyday items like drinking glasses, Tupperware, or an air conditioner without starting online at Target or Home Depot.
Weaver, a Manhattan shop owner who has spent the last decade convincing people that shopping locally is not hard and can be fulfilling, stepped in. Since 2014, she has operated local stores, starting with CW Pencil Enterprise, which sold writing utensils and stationery. In 2023, she created the Locavore Guide, a digital directory helping New Yorkers shop locally, meet neighbors, and explore the city. Her online video series, Caroline Finds It, takes on challenges to find everything from nylon kites to hourglass timers at local stores. In 2024, she opened the Locavore Variety Store, stocked with products from independent sellers manufactured in and around New York.
Why the Locavore Guide Exists
Weaver started the Locavore Guide because, in running her own small businesses, she found that customers wanted to shop local but didn't know where to start. TikTok, she added, tended to regurgitate the same 20 or so recommendations, and she wanted to give New Yorkers a wider, unbiased range of stores. "A lot of people treat shops … as something nice to walk past, somewhere you go when you have to buy a gift," Weaver said. "But really, those shops can’t exist if we’re not patronizing them and supporting them as neighbors and New Yorkers."
On a temperate afternoon in early June, Weaver took a reporter around downtown Manhattan to find essentials: dinnerware, cutlery, a kitchen prep table, and an air conditioning unit. Their first stop was S Feldman Housewares on the Upper East Side, a store operating since 1929. It stocked everything from chandelier cleaner and silver polish to everyday items like food storage containers, cleaning supplies, and drinking glasses. Weaver even found a replacement bird-shaped whistle for a tea kettle she had been looking for.
Price and Service Comparisons
Some prices were slightly higher than online, but Weaver said "it all evens out," as other products are less expensive in person. She noted that unlike Amazon, local stores do not constantly adjust prices according to algorithms. Stores like Feldman's also offer customer service impossible from most online retailers. "You get an actual person who can help you," she said. If the store does not have what you need, the shopkeeper may order it for free.
Weaver and the reporter then headed downtown to several more local spots: at Nuthouse, New York's only 24-hour hardware store, they picked up kitchen tools and painter's tape. At Fishs Eddy, a home goods store, they bought two plates and a set of cutlery. The reporter also spent time picking out a martini glass for an inaugural drink at the new apartment. Their last stop was Win Depot, a restaurant supply store in SoHo, where the reporter hoped to find a stainless steel work table for the kitchen, precisely sized to 6 feet long but limited in width for a narrow galley kitchen.
Customization and Community
Over several days, Cindy Loo, a manager at Win Depot, helped customize the table to exact measurements. When it arrived and fit perfectly, Loo shared in the excitement. Weaver has seen firsthand how many small businesses struggle. Tariffs and rising rents have been huge pains, along with changing consumer preferences. Post-Covid, online shopping has become the default, and New Yorkers seem less inclined to venture out of their neighborhood for necessities.
But things are changing. Boycotts of large online retailers have gained steam in recent years as corporations face criticism for low worker pay, suppressing union activity, rolling back DEI initiatives, and boosting billionaire pay. "If you have the means and privilege to make the choice of where you buy your goods, I think it is our social responsibility, our civic responsibility, to think about this from an ethics perspective," said Weaver. "Shopping local, shopping independent, is a way to ensure a future for our culture, our communities."
The Joy of Friction-Maxxing
As Weaver and the reporter traversed the east side of Manhattan, hopping on and off the 6 train, chatting with shop owners and patrons, the reporter kept thinking about a new term: "friction-maxxing." A columnist at The Cut declared 2026 her year of friction-maxxing, the practice of intentionally choosing inconvenience even as it becomes easier to automate lives, from using apps for food delivery to AI shortcuts for texts and emails. It would have been easier to purchase everything online. The day might have ended less sweaty and less hangry. But the reporter would never have met Cindy, who can now help with any kitchen needs, and would have missed out on exploring new shops and neighborhoods, making the return to New York even more exciting.
