America's Greatest Business: The Humble Lemonade Stand
When we reflect on the greatest of American businesses, we might look at the roots of American commerce like Benjamin Franklin’s publishing company. We could also ponder some of the most enduring like J.P. Morgan. Still, we could look toward newer entrants like SpaceX who may take American commerce into the heavens for the next 250 years.
While great in their own right, there is one enterprise that stands above all others in American business: the humble lemonade stand.
There is no firm that better exemplifies the American spirit than when a young boy or girl sets up a lemonade stand.
It’s an act rooted in optimism. Whether it’s an elaborate stand out of a Norman Rockwell painting or a wobbly table rescued from a dumpster, it’s a business born from optimism.
No business talk is more inspiring than a lemonade entrepreneur who excitedly tells you about the plans for their profits.
When you pass a lemonade stand, is there any business you’re rooting for harder? We want that lemonade stand to succeed.
Lemonade stands have faced many of the same struggles of American businesses over the years. The earliest recorded instances of these citrus stands go back to the 1800s. The popular beverage businesses sprang up with little regulation or fuss, just like any other business.
As regulation and attitudes changed, so did the prospects for young people and their lemonade businesses. Health departments, like an overzealous hall monitor, began to step in and “help.” Instead of encouraging those young people, the hammer of government showed up under the guise of protection. This overreach extends further with competing adult vendors who resent the competition and mean-spirited adults who complain to the police about a lack of permits.
To be fair, it’s a small segment of Americans who root against lemonade stands. It’s the same struggle faced by American businesses of all sizes. Whereas most Americans root for their neighbor, a small and loud minority cheer for the hammer of government instead.
Thankfully, the pendulum has begun to swing in the right direction. Backlash against the lemonade intimidators has caused many of the sour adults to retreat. Many local governments have shown common sense by granting exemptions for minors from the usual permits and rules that apply to food vendors.
Entrepreneurship has long served as a unifying force in America. The great American Booker T Washington observed the power of entrepreneurship to bring people together. When he founded the Tuskegee Institute, students were taught to make and sell bricks as part of their curriculum. Those simple bricks served as a bridge between former slaves and the white community in post-Civil War Alabama. Washington wrote, “Our business interests became intermingled. We had something which they wanted; they had something which we wanted.”
That is the great gift God gave us in American commerce. We take for granted, too often, the deeply American act of trading value for value and parting ways with a smile. Two strangers can meet and part ways a little better off.
When I celebrate Independence Day, I will celebrate all that American commerce has given us in the last 250 years.
More than anything else, I will celebrate every lemonade stand I see. I will buy a cup or two, raise my cup in toast, and enjoy the sour treat. That lemonade will be free of taxes and carry no seal of approval from the health inspector.
The greatest American business is still alive. Here’s to the youngest entrepreneurs and the greatest of all businesses. Wish them well as they jumpstart the next 250 years of American business.
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