Obamas Hit Up Petworth and Pleasant Pops for Small Business Saturday

To celebrate Small Business Saturday, President Obama, along with his daughters Sasha and Malia, patronized Upshur Street Books, an independently owned bookstore in Washington’s quickly gentrifying Petworth neighborhood. The 800-square-foot Upshur Street Books opened last year thanks to Paul Ruppert, owner of Petworth Citizen and Crane & Turtle, restaurants that abut the bookstore on either side. Aside from the Obama family stop, the store celebrated Small Business Saturday with baked treats, free drinks and discounts.

After buying a number of books, including Jonathan Franzen’s “Purity: A Novel” and the latest chronicles from the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, Barack, Sasha and Malia were off to Adams Morgan, where they stopped at Pleasant Pops for some frozen confections. (Read The Downtowner’s profile on Pleasant Pops here.) According to the Washington Post, President Obama declared the shop’s pops “the highlight of Small Business Saturday, before departing the store with a wave and a “happy holidays.”