On Mar 21, a website was launched. Making a lasting impact on the culture of running local businesses in St. Louis, CurbsideStl.com was the beginning of something memorable.

Curbside was born from an idea stacked on top of another idea. Attilio D’agostino, his partner, Elizabeth Tucker and the team at Novel, a creative agency, were helping Urban Chestnut Brewery build a new website during the shutdown. They knew this would  be crippling for small businesses.

“The number one thing that we want people to do is to support their local restaurants, and their local independence whether they’re restaurants or retailers, small shops, because they are so important to our community, both the restaurants and their workers and the jobs they create and also the unique fabric of the community that they’re a part of,” D’agostino said. “And so, what is important to us, is number one, that people are supporting local. And what we want you to know about curbside is a tool to help support local.”

On the site, users can choose what kind of services they’re looking for, as well as the communities they would like to support. Communities that are known to have a rougher start than most such as the black community, LGBTQ community, latinx community, foreign born communities and women in the business community.

“Systemic racism has only been amplified by the pandemic and it was our perspective that more black owned and immigrant owned businesses have suffered to a greater degree during the pandemic,” D’agostino said. “It’s created unique challenges for those communities that are even greater than the community as a whole, so we wanted to make sure that we had a way of amplifying those communities for people who wanted to make sure they gave special attention to supporting them.”

Julian Washington, a sophomore who frequently uses food delivery services such as Doordash, believes it is important to have a resource like Curbside during these times which are often uneasy times for many.

“Not only could that be a place where you can find new places to eat [at] and support, it’s also a place where you could probably end up finding a job, especially considering that most local businesses are family owned meaning they might be a little short on employees,” Washington said. “I mean your family only goes so far.”

Curbside sees themselves being around for a long time with the goal in mind of continuing to amplify and promote local over corporate through the use of social media and the support they provide on their website.

“Supporting local is part of our life and what we believe in, it’s not going to change,” D’agostino said. “Even if it’s not specifically just curbside service, it becomes more about supporting local businesses.”