Rob Illsley of Jardine’s Cafe and Blowes Clothing store manager Joshua Brame sit a hop, skip, and a jump away from each other on Baylis Street and share a simple symbiotic philosophy.

“My business has an effect on those around me and other businesses will have a similar impact on my operations, that’s fact,” Mr Illsley said.

“As such, I think it’s important to support each other by recommending other local bricks and mortar businesses to your customers.”

The sentiment may seem old-fashioned but the results speak for themselves.

“Our trade exceeded expectations over the Christmas period off the back of customers at Jardine’s and people who came to shop with us would drop by the cafe too,” Mr Brame said.

“It was quite remarkable.”

Mr Illsley believes neighbouring local businesses are more likely to cooperate with each other than larger franchise outlets.

Now, the cafe owner wants to see Wagga embrace local partnerships on the main street and revitalise footpath trade.

“I believe Baylis Street really is the heart of the community and I’ll always look to spend my money in local stores wherever possible,” he said.

“As a town, we should be trying to encourage our business chamber to instigate better campaigns to shop locally and support each other.”

The pair floated the idea of Wagga-centric spending cards or Sunday markets along Baylis Street to promote local business.

“I’d definitely support a weekend market of some description … but this whole street needs more foot traffic in general,” Mr Brame said.

“If I was a visitor, I wouldn’t even know this was the main street with the number of places boarded up.

“If we can get more people down around these areas, hopefully those shops will open again.”

Mr lllsley said emulating the success of Wagga’s semi-frequent markets such as River and Wren on Baylis Street could encourage more businesses to trade on weekends, despite the impact of penalty rates.