I am totally onboard with that... in fact, one of my eternal "quests" here is to plug the idea that we need to grow a Steem-based economy as part of growing Steemit AND the Steem currency in the long run.
There are several initiatives here already to do commerce internally... @steemshop, @steembay and @peerhub... but they are not really thriving yet.
Getting Steem/SBD used externally in Brick-and-mortar situations would also require (or certainly be helped by) an easier onboarding for Steemit... or perhaps a way for people to have a Steem wallet without necessarily being a content creator here... I know you can have one on exchanges, but that's hardly the most secure way to handle that.
Anyway, we have a small gallery/gift shop here in our town ( @reddragonfly ), and I plan to have both a "Steem accepted here" and a "Bitcoin accepted here" sticker on the door before year's end.
edited to add: I know @airmatti takes Steem/SBD in their Etsy shop.