Retailers feel cold shoulder for Valentine’s Day
A cozy, candlelit Valentine’s Day dinner can turn up the heat on romance. A pandemic and a gust of frigid air can keep that celebration at home, putting a chill on restaurants’ plans for a long-awaited profitable evening.
And so as the global health crisis continues to hammer retailing and pull budgets and attention spans in other directions, analysts are predicting a lukewarm Valentine’s Day for stores and restaurants. For restaurants already struggling with coronavirus-era capacity restrictions, this weekend brings a double whammy with a cold, wet snap pushing people from patios.
“The weather is our biggest enemy,” said Ben Berg, who through Berg Hospitality owns Turner’s, the Annie Cafe and B&B Butchers. “If it rains, people don’t go out. If they even think there’s going to be ice and snow, we’re finished.”
The forecast aside, a survey from Lending Tree, an online borrowing platform, found 40 percent of Americans plan to skip Valentine’s Day this year, and a separate study by market
research firm Numerator found only 48 percent of respondents plan to buy gifts this year, down from 68 percent last year.
Restaurants, too, will feel the pain, according to Numerator’s survey, which found only 17 percent of respondents planned to eat out this year, down from 45 percent last year. Valentine’s Day is normally one of the biggest events of the year for restaurants, but this weekend they’ll be forced to contend with 50 percent capacity restrictions in their dining rooms while reeling from weather-related cancellations.
“With everything the hospitality industry has been through, to have this thrown on top of them is disappointing,” said restaurant consultant David Littwitz, noting restaurants are like hotels in that they need to nearly fill their dining rooms in order to make money.
Weather-related cancellations are already pouring in, said Wafi Dinari, owner of Ouisie’s Table in River Oaks. By Thursday afternoon, he had received 37 cancellations for Saturday night but has so far been able to replace them through his wait list.
‘A significant hit’
Berg said his restaurant group has been capitalizing increasingly on takeout packages, especially as people are catching on to booze to-go. This way, he said, he did 20 percent more in sales on Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve than he had last year. Still, he said he expects sales to be down between 10 percent and 20 percent this year, depending on how bad the weather gets this weekend.
Chris Williams, owner of Lucille’s, said he expected his Valentine’s Day business will be down significantly.
“Because we lost the patio, we’re gonna take a significant hit,” he said. “It looks like we’ll do 30 percent down of what we did last year.”
Restaurateurs aren’t the only ones taking a hit.
Rex Solomon, owner of Houston Jewelry on Westheimer, said he had hoped more stimulus checks would have gone out by now. They haven’t, and he’s planning on taking a hit of between 20 percent and 30 percent this weekend compared with last year.
The good news
While restaurants and jewelry stores are more likely to feel the pinch, the outlook is rosier for those peddling lower-priced gifts such as flowers and candy. Those retailers are also more likely to weather the pandemic well, as people are still buying candy and flowers as a way to cheer each other up in dark, socially distant times.
“There’s a lot of, ‘We’re thinking of you, hope your day is better,’ ” said David Brown, owner of David Brown Flowers. “People are not only thinking of themselves, they’re thinking of other people more than ever before.”
Brown said he’s as busy as he would expect to be this week. In fact, he’ll likely have to turn away orders,
he said, approaching his saturation point Wednesday afternoon.
Elaine Nevarez, owner Elaine’s Florist, said her sales were looking slightly lower than last year’s, attributing that more to the holiday landing on a Sunday than to the pandemic.
“In the floral industry, when Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday it’s historically slower than when it falls on a weekday,” she said.
Sales to corporate accounts have softened, she said, as events are canceled and people aren’t working together in offices, but individual sales have picked up as people who can’t visit each other send flowers instead.
“We’ve had a little bit of a renaissance in the floral business because of the pandemic,” she said.
The cold weather will keep more people home this weekend, softening inperson sales, said Venky Shankar, research director for Texas A&M’s Center for Retailing Studies. And even though more people are ordering delivery during the pandemic, Shankar questioned whether that would help or hurt the romance of gift-giving.
“Now if you just pick your mobile phone up,” he said, “it doesn’t look like you’ve worked hard.”
Impeachment
Regarding “Senate agrees to hear case against Trump,” (A1, Feb. 10): I would urge the Republican senators to watch any of several Western movies with the same theme. It involves a corrupt land baron who shoots the sheriff in the back. He goes on trial, but the outcome is predetermined as his handpicked minions in the jury will absolve him of blame. The honest townspeople watch in horror as they, all, know he is guilty.
In the second act, though, the townspeople rise up, overthrow him and run his lackeys out of town.
Good, honest government triumphs in the end.
The evidence for conviction of Donald Trump is overwhelming. It’s not too late for the Republican senators to do the right thing. We can be rid of this evil man before he causes more damage. Orlando N. Campos, Houston
Regarding “Senate agrees to hear case against Trump,” (A1, Feb. 10): The impeachment trial in the Senate is very compelling. I am hoping Sen. John Cornyn will vote to convict the former president and disqualify him from further office, and I appealed to him to do so to support truth and our remarkable democracy. If he does so, he will be instrumental in reshaping the Republican Party after Donald Trump.
Though I cannot hope that Sen. Ted Cruz would ever vote to convict, I sent the following message to him: “Dear Sen. Cruz, Please use your authority as senator to convict the former president, and to bar him from further federal office. And then resign from the Senate in shame for your part in promoting the insurrection. Sincerely, Sylvia Szucs, Very Concerned Constituent.”
The former president needs to be held accountable for all his actions which culminated in the insurrection, a very grave assault on the Constitution and a strong betrayal of his oath of office. We need to convict and disqualify.
Sylvia Szucs, Houston
True patriotism
Regarding “Texans, we must speak up now for our voting rights,” (A15, Feb. 10): The need for term limits for our representatives and senators has become necessary. Re-election, political power and party before national interests is very evident behavior from our career politicians. What is needed are citizens who will be willing to show their patriotism by serving their country, not as a career, but as a sacrifice, taking time from their lives to do their duty and then letting others take their place. How can this be accomplished?
Fred Rummell, Houston