Image of store closing banner on West Marine storefront in Bellingham. Photo by Fernando Gonzalez Bellingham Metro News
Bellingham Metro News reviewed confirmed closures across Whatcom County and asked business owners, employees and residents what they believe is happening. Their answers point to rising costs, fewer Canadian customers, tighter household budgets and a business environment with increasingly little room for error.
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — One storefront closes. Another announces a final weekend. A longtime business owner retires. A national chain pulls out of a location. Somewhere else, a business survives by abandoning its storefront altogether.
Individually, there is usually an explanation.
Taken together, the picture is harder to ignore.
Bellingham Metro News has now confirmed at least 40 businesses, storefronts or local operations across Whatcom County that have closed or announced plans to close during 2026, including 34 in Bellingham.
The number does not mean 40 companies failed. Some owners retired. Some businesses moved operations elsewhere. Several companies continue online or at other locations. A handful on BMN’s list remain open today but have directly announced plans to close.
Still, the pace of closures has raised a larger question: What is making it so difficult to operate a business here?
BMN asked that question publicly in September. Two requests for comment generated more than 100 Facebook responses, along with emails and direct interviews with business owners, workers and residents.
There was no single answer.
For Candice Leonard, owner of Create It Studio, the story begins with why people start businesses in the first place.
“When I think about being a small business owner in Whatcom County, I think about the dream first,” Leonard told BMN. “The dream of entrepreneurial independence. The dream of building something of your own, creating jobs, serving your community and having the freedom to pursue something you are passionate about.”
Then comes the other side of it.
“But the dream is only the beginning,” she said.
Leonard has owned her business for six years and said the cost of maintaining a physical operation has changed dramatically during that time.
“Insurance has increased. Power and utilities has increased. Credit and debit card processing fees are substantial. Labor costs have increased,” Leonard said, adding construction, repairs, maintenance, shipping, tariffs and taxes to the list.
Those costs cannot always simply be passed along to customers.
“You see your costs going up. You see your overhead going up. You know your customers are already paying more for almost everything,” she said. “You do not want to raise your prices because you do not want to put another burden on the people who support your business. But you still have to pay the bills.”
“That is where the vicious cycle begins.”
Leonard said one of the less visible costs of entrepreneurship is what happens after the doors close for the night.
Owners are still thinking about payroll, the next round of expenses, an unexpected repair, inventory, taxes and whether there will be enough sales to cover everything. Nights, weekends and holidays can become workdays.
“You are not just investing your money,” she said. “You are investing your time, your energy, your relationships and pieces of your life.”
Leonard continues working another job while her staff handles much of the store’s daily operation, a choice she said gives the business additional financial stability while it grows. To her, that is part of a reality that does not always match the popular image of entrepreneurship as quitting a job, opening the doors and immediately succeeding.
“Being a business owner requires constant adaptation,” she said.
Owners learn when to invest, when to conserve, how closely to watch cash flow and how to adjust inventory when conditions change.
“And you learn that sometimes survival itself is an accomplishment.”
Leonard does not blame customers for using Amazon and other online retailers. She said convenience and lower prices understandably matter.
But she also wants people to understand where money spent locally goes.
“A local business has employees who live here. We pay local bills. We maintain buildings. We purchase services. We pay insurance, utilities, taxes and fees,” she said. “We participate in our communities.”
For Leonard, the contradiction of owning a small business is that the hardest and best parts are sometimes inseparable.
“I love serving my community,” she said. “I love seeing an idea become something tangible.”
She also acknowledged thinking about how much simpler life could be without the business.
“And then there is the other side of me that says I would do it again in a heartbeat,” Leonard said.
“Both can be true.”
Fewer Canadians are crossing the border
For Casey, founder of Fairhaven Web Design, one of the biggest changes is visible in the parking lots and streets of Whatcom County.
Casey recalled the long-running jokes about Canadian vehicles filling parking spaces and restaurants during busy periods.
“But every one of those cars was full of people spending money in our shops and restaurants,” Casey told BMN.
Casey said neighboring Fairhaven businesses noticed an immediate difference as Canadian traffic declined.
Separately, BMN’s own ability to reach Canadian readers has also been affected. Since 2023, Meta has blocked news content on Facebook and Instagram for people accessing the platforms in Canada in response to the country’s Online News Act. The restriction also applies to international news outlets, meaning Bellingham Metro News’ Facebook news content is blocked from users in Canada. For a border news outlet such as BMN, that removes one major social-media avenue through which Canadian residents might otherwise encounter reporting about Bellingham businesses, restaurants and local events. The restriction does not prevent individual businesses from maintaining their own social-media accounts, and BMN cannot establish that the news block itself has caused business closures, but it has changed how local news can reach audiences just across the border.
Rent, however, does not disappear when customers do.
Casey pays nearly $1,500 a month for a small three-room office in an older building and expects that cost to increase when the lease comes up in June.
“I can’t imagine carrying that or more for a street-level space while depending on foot traffic that isn’t coming,” Casey said.
Casey also questioned whether Bellingham should do more about commercial spaces that remain vacant for extended periods.
“There’s little incentive for landlords to fill those spaces,” Casey wrote. “The buildings appreciate whether or not anyone is in them. We should be asking what the city can do about long-term commercial vacancy.”
Casey’s concern about supporting local businesses also extends beyond restaurants and retail.
After recently completing a large directory project for a local organization, Casey said people around town seemed surprised the organization had hired someone local instead of sending the work to a larger company elsewhere.
“I’d ask why,” Casey said. “A local designer has more at stake in your project’s success than a company with no connection to this community.”
For Casey, the challenges facing local businesses overlap.
“Between the loss of Canadian visitors, rising rents, and a tight economy, Bellingham has become a hard place for a small business to find its footing.”
Social media may also be helping some local businesses build an audience in a changing media environment. BMN has observed businesses such as Bordertown Mexican Grill, Mallards and Doug’s Burgers regularly using TikTok and other short-form platforms to show their food, employees and day-to-day operations directly to customers.
Both have drawn visible community support while growing their businesses. According to previous reporting by The Bellingham Herald, and Bellingham Metro News, Bordertown has continued expanding its footprint across Whatcom County, while Doug’s grew from a food truck into a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
Their promotional content also tends to focus on real people, real food and footage from inside the businesses rather than obviously AI-generated advertising and ai promotional flyers. BMN cannot say that social media activity or avoiding AI is responsible for their success, but authenticity may matter as consumers become more skeptical of artificial marketing. A 2026 Bentley University-Gallup survey found nearly half of Americans viewed businesses using AI to create advertisements negatively.
For smaller businesses competing with national chains and larger advertising budgets, consistently putting the people and products behind the business in front of customers may be one way to build loyalty and maintain a direct relationship with the community. That may be especially relevant in Whatcom County, where Canadian users can no longer see news content from outlets such as BMN on Facebook because of Meta’s ongoing news block in Canada.
It’s also worth noting that Meta’s news block in Canada doesn’t apply the same way to regular business accounts. Canadian users may not be able to see news posts from outlets like BMN on Facebook and Instagram, but local restaurants, shops and other businesses can still post their own content. For businesses that rely on Canadian customers, keeping an active page and posting real photos, videos, specials and updates could help bring some of that traffic back across the border.
It may also help for business owners to think less like advertisers and more like content creators. Instead of only posting sales pitches, specials or product photos, businesses that show the people behind the operation, day-to-day moments, behind-the-scenes clips and personality can give customers more of a reason to follow along. That kind of content often feels more natural and can build an audience before someone ever decides to walk through the door.
But not every business is struggling
The story is not simply one of disappearing customers.
Before BMN interviewed him for this report, Cory Blackwood, owner of Ritual Records in downtown Bellingham, had already joined a Reddit discussion about the wave of local business closures and the condition of downtown.
Blackwood said Ritual’s sales and customer traffic were comfortably above the previous year, even as other businesses nearby were closing. The store’s inventory has also grown substantially over roughly four years.
Another downtown business, The Comics Place, similarly said in that discussion that it had seen stronger sales and foot traffic, though its owners pointed to factors specific to their business, including strong comic releases and a newer location.
For Blackwood, that made it difficult to explain the closures simply by saying people had stopped coming downtown.
When BMN later spoke with him directly, he expanded on that point.
Ritual Records has been moving in the opposite direction from many businesses on the closure list. Sales are up, customer traffic is up and the store has steadily expanded its selection.
Blackwood also said downtown can sometimes feel busier during major events and especially active days than it did 10 or even 20 years ago.
That does not mean he believes everything is fine.
Blackwood said the number of vacant storefronts remains concerning. Empty spaces can change the feel of an entire block, even when neighboring businesses are doing well.
He also pointed to the perception that downtown Bellingham is unsafe as something that can affect where people choose to spend their time and money.
That distinction matters. A business can be doing well while still operating in an area facing vacancies, changing customer habits and concerns about how downtown is perceived.
Ritual itself has continued growing in a part of downtown that has seen significant turnover. The record store has also helped fill part of the space in Bellingham’s music-retail scene once occupied by Everyday Music, something one reader specifically mentioned in response to BMN’s request for comment.
Blackwood’s experience does not erase the closures happening around him, but it does show that downtown’s business picture is not uniform.
Some businesses are struggling. Others are growing.
And in Blackwood’s case, customers are still showing up.
MathYou, who told BMN he is a longtime Fiamma Pizza employee, also sees both sides.
He has spent much of the past decade living in Bellingham and working at Fiamma. He has thought about opening a business of his own someday, ideally a restaurant combined with a music venue and art space, perhaps even something open 24 hours.
But turning that idea into a real business is considerably more intimidating than imagining it.
“I have my job. I pay my rent. I have hobbies, and I have dreams,” he wrote, describing the prospect of dealing with potentially large sums of money, or the lack of it, in the restaurant business.
He also said business closures have changed daily life for people who actually live and work downtown.
He particularly misses the former downtown Rite Aid, saying simple purchases now require him to walk farther or go elsewhere.
“Now I have to walk up the hill to Fred Meyer for ice cream,” he wrote, adding that he goes elsewhere for beer and no longer buys cases of water downtown.
Late-night food is another example.
MathYou said Fiamma’s position as one of the more dependable late-night options provides some job security, but he would rather see more competition and variety.
“Diversity being the spice of life, it’d be nice of course to have some more flavors available down here,” he said, remembering businesses including Seven Spice and Pita Pit.
He was also glad to see Ritual Records take over some of the role once filled by Everyday Music.
Despite everything that has closed, MathYou rejected the idea that Bellingham is headed for collapse.
“I think we are thriving in our own little way,” he said. “Business closures are happening everywhere across the country as far as I know.”
With Vancouver to the north, Seattle to the south, Western Washington University and the region’s natural setting, he remains optimistic.
“I think we’ll be okay.”
Readers point to everything from rent to customer service
The broader response to BMN’s request for comment was just as varied.
Angie K., who said her family has operated a business for four years, described a pileup of expenses rather than one single problem. She said insurance has nearly doubled, electricity has risen substantially and card-processing fees, labor, repairs and other costs have continued to climb.
Those figures reflect her family’s experience rather than countywide statistics, but similar cost concerns appeared repeatedly in BMN’s responses.
James B. argued that Bellingham businesses also have to be realistic about the size and makeup of the local market. A community with a substantial student population and a limited year-round customer base, he suggested, cannot necessarily support every concept indefinitely.
Jayni B. questioned another part of the conversation: whether telling residents to “shop local” is enough.
Customers still expect good service and a reason to choose a local storefront over an easier online purchase, Jayni wrote.
That perspective shifts some of the conversation away from government, rent and the economy and back toward the businesses themselves.
Others repeatedly raised taxes, commercial rent, labor costs, minimum wages, insurance, utilities and permitting.
Minimum wage is one area where Bellingham differs from the rest of Whatcom County. As of Jan. 1, 2026, Bellingham’s minimum wage is $19.13 an hour, $2 above Washington’s statewide minimum of $17.13. The higher city rate stems from a measure approved by Bellingham voters in 2023 and is now set to remain $2 above the state minimum. Elsewhere in Whatcom County, including Ferndale, Lynden, Blaine, Everson, Nooksack and Sumas, employers generally follow the statewide $17.13 minimum because those cities do not have separate local minimum-wage rates. Bellingham is currently the only Whatcom County jurisdiction listed by the Washington Department of Labor & Industries with a local minimum above the state rate. While several respondents pointed to wages and labor costs as part of the pressure facing businesses, the wage difference alone does not establish why any particular business closed.
Several brought up homelessness, crime or perceptions of safety downtown. Those concerns represent reader experiences and perceptions, not by themselves proof that crime caused a particular closure.
Britt H. encouraged BMN to look beyond advertised commercial rent and examine triple-net leases, where businesses may be responsible not only for base rent but also portions of property taxes, building insurance and maintenance.
Ramona C. and Mara D. separately pointed toward fewer Canadian customers.
Rod P. said a small home-based business he operated closed in May and attributed the decision largely to taxes.
Other readers said families simply have less money left for dining, entertainment and discretionary shopping after paying for housing, groceries, utilities and other necessities.
Those responses do not prove one explanation is correct.
They show why identifying one culprit is so difficult.
What actually closed?
BMN went back through its working list before publication and removed businesses where the evidence did not support counting them as closures.
That process matters because a storefront going dark does not necessarily mean a business disappeared altogether.
Peter James Photography Gallery closed its traditional Fairhaven gallery, but the business maintains a Bellingham showroom and online operation.
Downtown Mount Bakery and Temple Bar & Brunch also continue limited operations and therefore were not counted as a full business closure.
Wings Motorcycle, on the other hand, was confirmed. The longtime Custer-area business closed Aug. 29 after more than 40 years, and its Facebook page is now marked closed.
Swan’s Moving & Storage is also considered a confirmed forthcoming closure. The person who responded to BMN saying the company would close at the end of October was Dan Cocco Jr., president of Swan’s, rather than an unaffiliated commenter.
BMN’s current verified list, roughly following the year’s progression, includes Crooked Spoon’s Fairhaven storefront, Miller’s BackDoor, Country Patty’s Cafe, Pumped Goods, Echo Gallery, Galley Fish & Chips/Galley2GoToo Food truck, Starla’s, Denny’s on Telegraph Road, New Mexico Tamale Company, Homeschool BBQ, Looking Glass Salon, Birrieria Tijuana’s Bellingham location, Cute But Crazy Socks’ downtown storefront, Woods Coffee on Railroad Avenue, Vintage 360, Apse Jewelry’s Bellingham operation, MOTO Pizza’s Bellingham location, Bellingham Antique Mall, West Marine, Alpha Technologies Services operations, Avellino Coffeehouse, Welcome Road Wine & Coffee’s Bellingham location, EverLocal, Bloomhaven Bottle Shop, Betty Be Good’s Birch Bay storefront, Oasis Spa Northwest, Beach Store Cafe, Wings Motorcycle, Railway Cafe, lululemon in Fairhaven, Luna’s Bistro, MJ’s Martini Bar, Magdalena’s Bistro & Crêperie, Red Star Taco Bar’s Bellingham location, Rock & Rye Oyster House, Lumpia Luv, Sealed With A Gift, Corner Taphouse, and Swan’s Moving & Storage.
Some are location closures rather than the end of a company. Others have announced plans to close but remain open as of this report.
That nuance is important because there is no honest way to draw one line connecting every name on the list.
A restaurant whose owners retire is not the same as a business priced out by overhead. A national retailer leaving a market is not the same as an independent shop losing customers. A business moving online is not necessarily a failed business.
What the interviews do suggest is that many local operators are working with less room for something to go wrong.
A rent increase can arrive while customers are spending less. Insurance can rise while labor becomes more expensive. A slow winter can lead into a summer with fewer Canadian visitors. An unexpected repair or weak month that once might have been manageable can become much harder to absorb.
And yet businesses are still opening.
New operators continue taking chances on Bellingham and Whatcom County. Some empty storefronts are already finding new tenants. Ritual Records is growing. Employees such as MathYou still dream of someday opening places of their own.
That makes the story more complicated than saying Bellingham is dying.
It also makes the number difficult to dismiss.
At least 40 confirmed closures or announced closures in one year is enough to ask what is changing, what can be improved and what local businesses need if they are going to survive the next one.
New chains are still coming to Bellingham
The wave of closures is also happening at the same time Bellingham is seeing a noticeable influx of national and regional chains.
Chick-fil-A opened its first Whatcom County location on Cordata Parkway in April, while other major brands including Panera Bread, Texas Roadhouse, Jersey Mike’s and Wingstop have either opened, are preparing to open or have moved through the development process for Bellingham locations.
Other national retailers are also expanding into the area, including J.Crew Factory, which has permit activity underway for a proposed Sehome Village location.
Plans for Dutch Bros Coffee remain in the earlier stages. Development filings have shown continued interest in a Bellingham location along Cordata Parkway, but the project has not reached the point of a completed opening.
The arrival of those larger chains provides another layer to the local business picture. While independently owned businesses continue to face rising costs and other pressures, national brands with significantly larger corporate resources are continuing to view Bellingham as a market worth entering.
That does not necessarily mean chains are replacing local businesses one-for-one, but it does show that the same market producing a long list of closures is also attracting new investment.
For Bellingham, both trends are happening at the same time.
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