3 Things You Should Know About Small Business: Feb. 22

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- What's happening in small business today?

1. White Castle is testing wine offerings. One White Castle location in Indiana has become the test ground for serving beer and wine with its hamburgers. The fast food chain, notorious for its greasy sliders, is a fixture in at least a dozen states in the U.S. It seems almost counterintuitive to the economically priced burger chain, yet customers were asking for beer, the company says, and wine was added as well.

2. The U.S. is looking again at visas for tech entrepreneurs. U.S. immigration authorities are reviewing rules that have stifled foreign-born entrepreneurs who lack U.S. passports from starting companies here. While this is not broad immigration reform, authorities say they want to make sure the system is realistic for high-growth companies, according to Bloomberg Business Week.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is hosting an online summit Wednesday to discuss how immigration policy affects entrepreneurs.

3. Even thrift stores are going digital. WebThriftStore is a New York City start-up that allows charities to set up their own online thrift stores. The company began launching the stores in October and most recently started one for the ASPCA. The way it works: Consumers post and sell unwanted goods on the site of their choice and donate the proceeds to a charity. So far users have listed more than 600 items through WebThriftStore, helping charities raise more than $6,000, according to Crain's New York Business.

The online store helps charities finding it hard to maintain a traditional bricks-and-mortar store due to overhead. Still, WebThriftStore is a for-profit business. It takes a percentage of the donations to each charity.

-- Written by Laurie Kulikowski in New York.

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