Business Buzz: Tundra Grill now known as the Dogg Pound, America's most recession-proof businesses, and more

FARGO — The Tundra Grill, a downtown Fargo restaurant that recently switched its focus to serving gourmet hot dogs, is now doing business as the Dogg Pound.

Owner Jessica Torres asked for name suggestions on the Tundra Grill Facebook page. Some of the other suggestions included Who Let the Dogs Out?, Top Dawg, Dog Gone Good, Frankly the Best, Best in Show, Doggie Bag, Fargo Franks and The Weinery.

The restaurant opened at 623 NP Ave. in the former 623 Nutrition space on Jan. 18 and operated for a few weeks before closing to transition to its new menu.

The Dogg Pound is now open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

As much as we’re trying to avoid it, we’re seeing more mention of the “r word” lately.

The good news is that if you’re a small business owner who runs a bookstore, food truck or staffing agency, you may already have some built-in recession resilience.

Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and indication of popularity from Google search trends, Forbes Advisor assessed 60 small business types and determined which of them are most and least recession-proof in 2023. Forbes then assigned each business type a score based on its performance across several categories: growth in number of businesses during the Great Recession and the latter part of the pandemic, growth in wages during the same periods, and estimated startup costs.

At 43%, bookstores saw the biggest increase in the number of businesses during the latter part of the pandemic. Coupled with a moderate startup cost, bookstores also enjoyed steady wage growth during both the Great Recession (+13%) and the latter part of the pandemic (+16%), making this type of business the most recession-proof of all.

In 2022, The New York Times reported that more than 300 new independent bookstores had popped up across the country in the previous couple of years, calling this “a surprising and welcome revival after an early pandemic slump.”

The recession-proof nature of the book business has been attributed to the fact that books are relatively cheap “and yield an impressive bang for their buck in terms of entertainment."

Other recession-proof businesses include: interior design services, staffing agencies, food trucks, car rental services and residential property managers.

But the analysis also found some businesses which aren’t so recession-proof.

Furniture stores ranked last on the Forbes list due to high startup costs (up to $200,000) and only slight changes in the number of new businesses late in the pandemic (+2%) and during the Great Recession (-12%).

Here’s Forbes list for the other least recession-proof businesses in 2023:

• Gas stations
• Home-furnishing stores
• Housing construction companies
• New car dealerships
• Restaurants
• Taxi or rideshare services
• Used car dealerships
• Vacation rentals
• Women’s clothing boutiques

Contributed / Enclave

Minneapolis — The Twin Cities Business Journal recently named Enclave one of the Top 10 Largest Developers, placing the company in the 10th spot on its list.

The unified real estate investment firm has developed over 1.4 million square feet in the Twin Cities metro since 2020. The list ranks developers in a 24-county metro area by total square feet developed between 2020 and 2022.

According to an Enclave press release, in 2022 the company broke ground on four projects in the Twin Cities metro. These projects added 415 units and a total of 795,664 square feet; double the amount built in 2020.

• two new multifamily projects in Bloomington and Hastings, 
• a mixed-use project in Richfield 
• an industrial building in Cottage Grove. 

In the same year, Enclave constructed and began leasing developments in Maple Grove (Caliper) and Rogers (Fredrik).
Enclave's newest area developments include multifamily and mixed-use properties in Hastings, Hopkins, Plymouth and Maplewood. All are scheduled to break ground before the end of 2023.

For more information, visit enclavecompanies.com .