3 Things You Should Know About Small Business: March 12

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

1. Denny's cancels China expansion. Denny's (DENN) Monday said it and franchising partner Great China International Group mutually agreed to cancel plans to expand in China.

Denny's still plans to open between 40 to 45 new restaurants this year.

"We continue to believe that Denny's has great potential in the Pacific Rim in general, and China in particular, and are actively seeking development partners who share that vision," Denny's President and CEO John Miller said, in a statement on the company's Web site.

"In 2012, we signed our first development partnership for South America and are looking forward to opening our first location in Chile sometime in the next 12 months, which will help us grow our current base of 98 International restaurants located in nine countries and U.S. territories," Miller said.

Denny's currently has 1,688 franchised, licensed and company-owned full-service restaurants throughout the world with combined sales of $2.5 billion.

2. Is Etsy turning into eBay? Sellers on Etsy, the popular handmade goods Web site, are wondering whether the portal is turning into eBay (EBAY). According to a blog on Outright.com, Etsy has implemented a new seller-rating system. The system, Customer Service Stats, is not public and is simply a way for sellers to monitor how well they're doing; however sellers are nervous the ratings will become public, similar to what happened on eBay, Outright says.

"Does this sound familiar? If you have experience selling on eBay, those pesky little DSRs or star ratings probably come to mind. If so, you're not alone in your thinking. While some people believe that Etsy is planning to use the ratings to keep sellers in line, others are convinced that it is only a matter of time before Etsy decides to make the ratings public," the blog says.

3. Serving breakfast, lunch and hugs. A very inspiring video appears on AOL.com featuring a restaurant owner who has Down 's syndrome. With his family's support and help, Tim Harris opened Tim's Place in 2010

The video shows the joy Harris gets from serving customers at his Albuquerque diner -- and if you're a customer, you'll likely get a hug from Harris. Harris has given out more than 32,000 hugs to customers.

"We serve breakfast, lunch and hugs. The hugs are the best part," Harris says in the video.

-- Written by Laurie Kulikowski in New York.

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