During the peak of Operation Metro Surge, Karmel Mall, a once-bustling Somali shopping center and community hub, was quiet. As many as 60 to 80% of the mall’s nearly 650 businesses were shuttered as owners, workers and customers avoided areas with a heavy presence of federal agents.
Although the mall’s foot traffic has slowly increased in the six months since then, it is nowhere near its usual levels. About 25% of the mall’s businesses are still closed, according to Yusra Mohamud, a business adviser at the Lake Street Council. Others are open for limited hours; their owners have taken other jobs to keep themselves and their shops going.
On Wednesday, Aug. 26, though, the Lake Street Council’s “You Belong Here” cash mob, which encouraged shoppers to patronize Karmel Mall that evening, brought fresh faces into the mall.
Twin Cities residents who had not previously frequented the shopping center sampled sweets, coffee and sambusas and browsed through stores selling traditional Somali clothing and gold jewelry. The cash mob was the 12th and final installment in an event series meant to bring money and business to shops hit hardest by Metro Surge.
“We want to encourage people, not just in these neighborhoods, to come and support [these businesses] and to shop local,” Mohamud said.
“We want them to familiarize themselves with this community. The main goal was to spend your money here, but not only that — to get to know the community members and the residents and the stories behind these storefronts.”
Several cash mob attendees said they had wanted to shop at Karmel Mall for a while, but felt a barrier to coming, whether it was a language difference or a lack of familiarity with the shopping center and what it offered. The cash mob helped lower that barrier.
“Karmel Mall is the sort of thing I always hoped for in the Twin Cities,” attendee Eric Jenson said. “I used to live six blocks from here, and I knew of it, but I didn’t have a reason to come here. This is that invitation to explore a part of the cities that I didn’t know.”
Shoppers’ purchases and the $25 gift receipts that the council gave out in a raffle provided short-term assistance to struggling businesses. For some, however, this was not enough.
Khadijo Warsame, a single mother and the owner of Karmel Mall’s Zahra Cafe, has struggled to pay rent and keep her business open in recent months. She said that all Minnesotan small businesses are facing challenges and need more help.
“Twenty-five dollars is nothing,” Warsame said. “We need $25,000.”
The Lake Street Council has advocated for economic relief for businesses affected by Metro Surge. The organizations sought $100 million in relief funds from the Legislature, but that failed to pass. Aside from a $7 million grant that the city of Minneapolis passed to support small businesses, the majority of economic support for these businesses has come from mutual aid, Mohamud said.
The Karmel Mall event was the Council’s final cash mob; as immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities slowed down, businesses stopped requesting to be cash mob sites.
“We pivoted our operations drastically in the winter, and now we’re pivoting back to normal operations,” Charise Canales, corridor vibrancy manager at the Lake Street Council, said. “We’ll do it again if our community needs us to change what we’re doing in any way.”
At sites of previous cash mobs, store owners said the Council’s events gave their business a boost, but they have far from fully recovered.
At Metro Surge’s peak, Alan Perez Castillo was one of the only people in Plaza Mexico. The owner of La Roqueta, one of Plaza Mexico’s restaurants, said that people had stopped coming little by little because they were afraid. When immigration agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, only a handful of customers came in each day.
“When I came to Plaza Mexico in 2019, there were many people here every week,” Perez Castillo said in Spanish. “It was full of food and people. On the weekends, you could barely walk through all the people. Now, it feels sad. What a business owner wants is for people to come visit their store.”
Hundreds of people shopped at Plaza Mexico during the April 24 cash mob there, according to Charise Canales, corridor vibrancy manager for the Lake Street Council. Some cash mob customers who had not previously known about Plaza Mexico have returned, especially to the restaurants.
Now, all the stores in Plaza Mexico are open again, but they are still struggling. Lopez Herradora said that Plaza Mexico needs economic support, publicity and more customers.
“We are open every day, but people aren’t here,” Karen Lopez Herradora, the owner of Plaza Mexico’s Novedades Krystal LLC, said in Spanish. “A business without clients is not a business.”
Shoppers at the Karmel Mall cash mob said they planned to return to the shopping center and to tell their friends about it. Several said that this financial support and advertising were some of the most direct ways they could help businesses recover. Lake Street Council’s Canales agreed.
“We need to continue to encourage people to come out and support our business community,” Canales said. “Customers were really great during Metro Surge in showing up and showing our businesses that they are loved and cared for, and we need that to continue. This is not over.”
