Payson tries to move on after wildfire
Bush Fire closed roads and halted access to the town for several days
Businesses in Payson welcomed travelers back into town with open arms this week after days of forced road closures while the Bush Fire raged in the Tonto National Forest.
Access to the town was effectively halted while firefighters battled the Bush Fire that caused the closure of State Route 87, a highway also known as the Beeline, that
“It’s just one thing after another. It’s been really hard.” Kassie Sexton Co-owner,
Beeline Cafe
serves as the town’s arterial thruway.
The Beeline Cafe, for example, is located right off the highway, and relies heavily on out-of-town customers. This is usually its busiest time of year.
The small diner was still reeling from months of closures meant to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Then, 13 days after businesses began reopening, the Bush Fire started. Officials quickly shut down roads near the flames, including State Route 87.
The cafe, a Payson staple for 58 years, found itself hamstrung once more.
“It’s just one thing after another,” said Kassie Sexton, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband and his family. “It’s been really hard,” she said.
The human-caused fire began June 13 and had burned 190,000 acres as of Friday, at which point officials said it had been 90% contained.
The cafe is one of 535 commercial businesses in Payson, many of them small and locally owned, according to the town’s Business Licensing Department. Restaurants and shops along the highway rely especially on travelers who pass through or visit the town from Phoenix and other larger cities in Arizona.
Sexton, for example, said about 80% of her customers visit the cafe from out of town.
By noon Wednesday, Sexton was still waiting for an influx of patrons.
Just south along the highway from the cafe is the Western Village, a large arts and antiques store that has been in business for 20 years.
The owner, Sue Malinksi, who lives in Tonto Basin 30 miles south of Payson, where residents were ordered to evacuate on June 16, told The Arizona Republic on Tuesday she had been sleeping in a back room of the shop while firefighters battled the flames near her home.
On Wednesday, Malinski said she was optimistic business would finally pick up.
Rebecca Acord, another small business owner in Payson who runs a candy store that specializes in fudge, coffee and gelato said her shop was crippled by the road closures.
“Business just came to a screeching halt,” Acord said, who owns the Sweet Country Charm candy shop.
Roads were closed during the week of Father’s Day, which Acord says is a time she typically sees fudge sales surge. The vast majority of her customers are tourists, she said, and because the roads had closed, only a handful of customers came into her shop that week.
“Father’s Day is usually a really big day for us, because they come in and buy a bunch for dad,” she said. “It literally was one of the slowest weeks I’ve had since I opened my business 10 years ago.”
Bret daCosta, owner of a small take-out shop off the highway called By the Bucket, which sells spaghetti in large paper buckets, said that while his business during the road closures was about 30% of typical levels, his low overhead costs and his inexpensive and popular menu options kept him from being as financially devastated as others in Payson.
He runs the shop with just one other employee, and sometimes his 13-year-old son handles the cash register. He hasn’t yet had to resort to layoffs or reduced hours to stave off the losses due to the pandemic and the road closures.
DaCosta opened his restaurant just two years ago, but he said during that time he’s grown a reliable local customer base.
“I’m very fortunate,” daCosta said. “Everyone seems to love my spaghetti; we sell more and more spaghetti every day.”