Raising the minimum wage won't help

[The Grand Nudger]

Accept it's been demonstrated that small businesses aren't not wiped out by wage hikes. In fact, in some cases, local economies see a boost.

I'm sure you mean "except".

I am in an old railroad town.  The downtown is filled with local shops that cater to the western culture of the area for the most part.  There are clothing boutiques, a locally owned flower shop, a coffee and whatnot shop that is very popular even though there are at least three Starbucks in town.  There's a furniture store that carries very rustic, heavy, western influenced goods that you don't find at the chains.  There are restaurants and now a winery.  There's a quilt shop and a place that sells candles they make as well as decorative things.  There's a tanning salon that is not a chain.  

The town pushed hard for people to continue to do business with these shops through the pandemic to keep the downtown going.  

All around the outside of town are the chain stores you would expect to see just about anywhere.

This town rallied to keep the feel of the town going.  But if they owners of some of these shops been expected to pay $15.00 per hour, I don't see how some of them would have made it.  Many cut operating hours but you could call and make an appointment.

 Why not?  You're already paying for nostalgia in a way that amounts to local tourism.  You could go to Old Timey Small Town Feels world for all of that merchandise, and get a lower price for it, -and- they can afford to pay their labor a better rate. Will all of the people who live there who are not working in that tourism sector and who are working for employers which can pay a higher wage not spend those higher wages there?

The death of small town america is a feature of capitalism, not a bug.  A good thing. Mom and Pops are just so many inefficient operators wasting labor and capital, and the american consumer demanded better.