What businesses are successful these days in small towns?

Massage

vapes

thats it really

Lot of business don't need high street, like the dog grooming. The best rent payers no doubt are bookies. I often rate towns on the number of bookie shops they have. Trade I don't like. Definitely room for a florist in each town. Turkish barber, phone and electronic accessories.

I live in a small village and the butchers closed recently, due to retirement. The queue use to be out the door at certain times. Nothing better going into a proper butcher to discuss what the best cut is to use for meals or the butcher going in the back to bring out a side of meat to cut your steak off. Just outside the village there is a farm shop selling fruit and veg and it is packed there, get a big bag of onions for €3 which is nearly the same price as one of those net bags of onions with 5 onions in it in the supermarket. That is busy as well.

Slot machine / games arcade - little space needed, good income and easy to manage.

The latest shop to open in my midsize town is a combined sex shop / tattoo parlour called 69 Ink. I’ll be interested to see how long it lasts.

Seems to a problem with a lot of trades not just butchers. Hard to know who to make the trades more appealing. The butchers in the supermarkets are not the same. They don't seem to have the same knowledge as a local butcher and god forbid if you asked them to cut up a whole chicken into the different parts.

Re: butchers

There is a few businesses I've seen in Derry which started out as a butchers, but have now branched off into providing a lot of ready made meals, stews, homemade pies, various potatoes in different sauces etc, all prepacked, and they never empty. Regularly a queue at the door.

And they offer things like 3 packs for £10 etc, so folk can mix and match. Seems to be a great success for many years now.

Also seen an explosion in dog grooming businesses. I know one guy who was one of the first to open one here, and he's doing very well for himself, but he has a lot of competition now as dozens have opened over the last few years. A pleasant take on them was the self service dog washing places. They provide all the bays, water etc, but you wash your own dog rather than a stranger doing it. Might be an angle?

Tanning places seem to get regular business as the new generation become obsessed with their Insta-look.

Perhaps a place that does Botox? Or whatever it is that they pump into their faces and lips these days, cos I see a lot of people whose faces look weird, so there must be money out there for that.

Bakery / Deli.

Fresh bread and cakes, deli salad lunches and soup to eat in or take out, maybe an all day brekky, small catering service for communions, house parties, funerals etc. Fresh made birthday cakes and treats.

If a place like this establishes a good reputation they can do a bomb, retain great loyalty and get word of mouth business from far and wide.

Friends of ours, a couple, have left their 9-5 jobs to do exactly this in a busy small village and are having a wonderful time doing it, have become really popular with the local organisations and clubs to cater events for them. All the school mammies throng the place for coffee and eats after 9am and the farming contractors and builders flock in for lunch.

All told, they work 7.30am to 4pm, 6 days and deal with any catering jobs as required, have a good roster of local casual staff to relieve them and take short holidays.

They love it.

Sounds like it's doing well for a town of 7000. Definitely needs more coffee at least one place doing really good coffee and another a good big breakfast.

Also pizza an Asian food but not in the little unit you mentioned.

Do people not die or get married in the town? (Are these two things related 😀😀)

The "walk in" business of a florist is a sideline to their main business.

Dog grooming is a good option if rent and rates is under €12k