As part of National Small Business Week, COSE visited different small businesses we support, one each day of the week, to thank them for their hard work and encourage them to keep innovating into 2025. 

Little Jacket

On Monday, we featured Little Jacket, a branding and communications firm located inside the Murray Hill gallery in Little Italy. The firm is more than 20 years old and has contracted with a slew of Greater Cleveland businesses and agencies, from the City of Cleveland to University Hospitals. They also jump at the opportunity to work with non-profits. 

“Whenever we can do well, while doing good, it warms our hearts,” says Managing Partner Roger Frank. 

Little Jacket is also proud to have won a handful of local, regional, and national awards for their work. Learn more about them here. 

Yellowcakeshop

For day 2 of National Small Business Week, the COSE team popped up on Yellowcakeshop Clothing to congratulate them for their work. Owner Valerie Mayén opened the clothing store in 2009 after studying at The Cleveland Institute of Art and Otis College of Art and Design and selling her designs on Etsy. 

Yellowcakeshop’s business model is high-end but accessible clothing for the everyday woman of all sizes. The clothing often includes pockets for the on-the-go mom or busy businesswoman and runs extra small to 6X. They also offer customization of all their pieces. Mayén says the concept began out of necessity after living in Texas for years. 

“So moving from Texas to the Midwest, where it’s like the tundra, I was freezing all the time,” she recalls. “So I just started making my own coats and people seemed to like them, and I just didn’t stop.” 

Yellowcakeshop has a new location in Gordon Square at 6706 Detroit Avenue. Visit this woman-owned business in-person and visit their website to shop online and learn more. 

Terranean Herbs 

Tina Chamoun began her Lebanese spice, spreads and pita chip brand Terranean Herbs and Spices during an unlikely time – the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, while pregnant with her son. What began as her knocking on doors and sending follow-up emails to local retailers is now a full-fledged brand in 2,000 stores.  

We visited the Season Five Cleveland Chain Reaction winner in her new warehouse space for Day 3 of Small Business Week. The pita chips are now made in a previously unused part of Jasmine Bakery, where all pita is made for her family’s Aladdin’s, Boaz, and Sittoo’s restaurants across Northeast Ohio. Tina hired an all-Lebanese-women team to bake, season, and package her pita chips. 

“There’s women here who came to Cleveland, they immigrated here just like my parents, and I want to continue to make these work opportunities available to them,” she says. 

Tina also supports the Wonder Women of Food networking program for women in the Cleveland food industry, a group she helped start. Pick up her product in local stores across Greater Cleveland or visit her website here. 

Midwest Transatlantic Lines, Inc. 

The goods and products we use every day, whether at work or in our personal lives, go on a journey before they reach us. Berea-based logistics provider Midwest Transatlantic Lines, Inc., or MTA Lines, takes great pride in orchestrating that journey for products all over the world.  

Richard Gareau began MTA Lines in 1980, as his son Robert puts it, in their family basement. Today, it is a family and employee-owned business run by Richard’s son Robert.  

“My father’s partner in Europe needed a reliable partner in the Midwest to ship freight to Europe. So that’s where Midwest Transatlantic came from,” Robert explains. 

MTA Lines coordinates with planes, freighters and ships traveling worldwide to deliver a variety of goods. Their warehouse is known as a bonded CFS – meaning they have the authority from the Customs & Border Protection Agency to receive shipments under a customs bond, making them the only logistics company in Greater Cleveland with that title. Learn more about them and their family history here. 

Kicks N' Cuts

Marvin Montgomery Jr. began Kicks N’ Cuts, his clothing, shoe store and barber shop, right out of high school - and he has never looked back. This inspiring young entrepreneur was our final surprise visit for Small Business Week. Kicks N’ Cuts shares a building with Marvin Jr.’s mother, who runs a boutique and nail salon with her daughter on the first floor. Marvin Jr. is also an active COSE member, taking after his father, Marvin Montgomery “The Sales Doctor," a long-time COSE board member.

“I would say, my alarm clock was ‘Hey guys it’s Marvin Montgomery, the Sales Doctor!’ His office was literally right next to my bedroom, so [I was] hearing that every morning,” Marvin Jr. recalls.

Kicks N’ Cuts offers luxury and affordable wear, even dressing celebrities including Cleveland Browns players. Outside of running operations, Marvin Jr. says he loves the networking opportunities that come with running a small business. He’s even spoken at local schools, influencing the next generation. Kicks N’ Cuts will soon be moving from the space above his mother's nail salon to a nearby building offering much more room. Learn more about this business and shop online here.