East End Business Book: 80-Year-Old Inventor Turns to YouTube

Our , a wrap-up of the week's news from Greenport to Riverhead to Montauk, recaps each Patch site's most compelling story. Below, we bring your our weekly business wrap-up, so you're in the know on which businesses are coming and going in the area. 

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SOUTHAMPTON

Eighty-year-old Southampton local Betty Birnbaum has invented a multipurpose tool for cleaning, cooking, fixing and more that she calls "Ms. Wiggley," and now she is using YouTube to demonstrate how the all-in-one device can make life easier.

Betty B, as she refers to herself in her online infomercial, said she has a hat full of ideas, but currently dedicates her time to Ms. Wiggley. It's been a decade since she came up with the idea, she said, but she finally got through the patent and production process three years ago.

“It started out with a fingernail,” she said. Birnbaum wanted a tool to scratch off dirt and perform a multitude of tasks. She ended up with a small, wavy black tool made of nylon. In her infomercial she says, “This little tool looks like nothing and can do everything.” She shows it scraping carrots, coring apples, washing dishes, cleaning grout, taking plastic off bottles and performing other tasks.

WESTHAMPTON-HAMPTON BAYS

A new toy store, called Mother Goose Toys, has opened in the former Beach Realty storefront at 87 Main Street in Westhampton Beach. The store is a second for owner Alex Dank, of Remsenburg, who has been the proprietor of  for the past eight years. 

NORTH FORK

New owners , which was previously A Taste of Poland in Cutchogue, said that their rush on the Polish doughnut known as the paczki took place the Thursday before Fat Tuesday this week. The small deli — the only Polish deli on the North Fork — is stocked with fresh kielbasa and other Polish meats, produce, breads and food products, but co-owner Kate Gryczan said that lunch, dinner and catering service is limited at the moment. She said she plans to refurbish the store's kitchen area to expand upon those services soon.

EAST HAMPTON

Everett Griffths couldn't hide his emotions as the lunch rush settled down — the last of his deli's 33-year run.

Griffiths, and his wife Angela, closed , one of the last mom and pop's in East Hampton Village, on Friday. They are retiring, hanging up their aprons on their own terms. "I wanted to go out while I'm on top," he said. Plus, "I'm tired and I don't want to get up at quarter to 4 in the morning anymore."

RIVERHEAD

After more than 30 years in business and doing what she estimated was over 125,000 perms,  at 

From 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., longtime and not-so-longtime customers shuffled in and out of the Pulaski Street salon to say goodbye one last time.