It's a northern Kentucky river city that is only one square mile.

But the small city of Bellevue and Campbell County has managed to generate big interest with the help of some clever marketing.

We pay them a visit and our Mondays on Main segment.

Back in the seventies, we had just everything in Bellevue.

It was pretty amazing.

So one at a time when the big box stores came in, they started big super grocery stores, super deluxe department stores, big super hardware stores, and one at a time.

These little places started not being able to make it, and they started closing by the year 2000.

A lot of that stuff that made Bellevue really charming was gone.

2002, the corner turned and I think within a couple of years five of those buildings were bought.

Then six and seven downtown.

Now is looking really good.

So we don't have a street named Main Street.

People call it the avenue.

And, you know, when people say, we're going to the avenue, it's Fairfield Avenue.

I think what's so unique about Bellevue that we don't see as much now in the last 20 years of just modern development is getting back to the roots of what makes a main street downtown possible.

And it's it's truly these small businesses lined up and down both sides of the street.

So whether you're traversing it, walking or biking or driving, you realize I've arrived and seeing people walk along the downtown and have more density there really creates this lively nature of the community.

And I think as Bellevue continues to attract not only businesses, but people too, to stop and stay, I always look at the Saturday or Sunday morning test when it's anywhere from about 9 a.m. to noon.

Where are people out doing life?

Are they walking that coffee shop or they walking their dog or are they going to the park?

And I think it's just really unique what you see along Fairfield Avenue in Bellevue, that they have this lively nature and they've never lost the historic nature that this community has always had along the avenue.

The city and the business groups do a great job of promoting business here and helping out all the the little stores.

You know, we're fortunate that we're right across the river from Cincinnati.

So we draw from that crowd, too.

You know, it's a five minute drive over and a five minute drive back.

The oldest door, please, in Lanham and is right next to the newest retail store, the breads.

It's one of those things where I think when you create a desirable community or a desirable location, it creates, you know, friendship, it creates community, it creates relationships.

And I think that the smaller you can get and the more you can bring local people together, the further that will go.

And we're very proactive and intentional about the events that we plan.

And a lot of times we like to tie in to an event that's already happening.

So, for example, when Taylor Swift came to Cincinnati last summer, we knew we had a Taylor Avenue and, you know, I started thinking about downtown is going to be so crowded.

What about people that don't want to be in the big crowd but are still going to see the show?

We quickly decided we're going to put up the Pink Street signs and temporarily change the name of the avenue.

But we also collaborated with all of the businesses on the Avenue to make different specials to attract people to Bellevue before the concert so they could have a Taylor Swift themed dinner, go to a bar, have a Taylor Swift themed drink, and then maybe get a little love story Ice cream at Schneider Sweet Shop.

I love any time we can do anything fun, like fun just brings people in.

You know?

So it was just fun.

It didn't really cost us any extra money we didn't have to spend in marketing.

We just had to make a fun ice cream.

And the amount of swifties that came to Bellevue was insane.

We could have put Taylor Swift on anything and people would have come and it was amazing.

And it was all people from out of town.

And so good for places like us and the other small businesses in Bellevue, because it brings people that have never been here before.

It makes the city alive.

And that's what I want.

I want Bellevue to be the most family friendly city in this whole tri state area.

And we're getting there.

I think we almost got it.

Now, you may have noticed the pictures of people standing in a giant Barbie box.

The city created the box to coincide with the release of the Barbie movie in 2023.

And influencers and fans of the doll traveled to Bellevue to take pictures in the box.