CUSTOMER VOLUMES HAVE YET TO RETURN TO NORMAL
Even though the economy is reopening, people aren’t shopping like they were before the pandemic hit.
With a few exceptions, most businesses said they have seen the number of customers coming into their stores and restaurants begin to increase, but the current number of customers is either unsustainable or won’t allow the business to get back into the full swing of things.
“It’s definitely not the same as last year,” said Ray Schick, owner of Stars Hamburger.
Schick said he’s had to do a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid going into the red, but has also been trying to figure out how to get the employees he had to lay off back to work.
Things were much worse when the pandemic first began because almost no one was going out, but it’s gotten busy enough for Schick to have four employees working.
“I’m bringing four more back the week after the Fourth of July,” Schick said.
Los Bagels has also been able to sustain its operations, but Travis May, Los Bagels’ general manager, said there are still 16 people who are laid off and bringing them back to work would require more people coming into the stores.
“With social distancing and keeping people six feet apart, we have only so many people we can get through the store at a certain time,” May said. “Sometimes we’re bumping up against that capacity.”
Retail businesses said the community has been finding different ways to support them, such as buying gift certificates and ordering online when they were shut down. Some of them also won’t be able to rehire their employees until more customers come shopping.
Sue McIntyre, owner of clothing store Belle Starr in Old Town Eureka, opened up at the end of May and has been keeping the store open mostly by herself.
“Two employees have come back to work one day a week,” McIntyre said. “So we’re sort of phasing in and trying to do it in a way that will keep the money lasting as long as we can and still providing access to store.”
Mike Williams, owner of the Jogg’n Shoppe in Arcata, echoed the sentiments of other business owners and managers, that the
current level of customers is unsustainable but it’s still much better than being shut down entirely.
The problem for Williams is back-to-school time is a big revenue-generating period for him because of fall sports, but now “that’s going to be a slower month,” he said.
“It is a tough time overall,” Williams said. “The financial thing has been heartbreaking; friends have had to close down their stores and stuff. Even with the reopening you’re not quite at the level you were before by any stretch.”
But business owners said they were hopeful and forming alliances with other members of the business community to offer mutual support.
McIntyre said it’ll make a difference once more restaurants are open in Old Town because people come there for an experience, not just to exclusively shop or dine. Until that happens, she said the businesses that are open in Old Town put together a site shopoldtowneureka.com to list their hours.
One business owner reported the opposite trend, with many more customers in the month of June than months prior. Jason Self, owner of Kayak Trinidad, reported tours were up 25% this June compared to last year and rentals were up 300% during the past month compared to last year.
Self said instead of focusing his marketing on tourism, he poured all that money into local radio and got a lot of people who were trying to escape the quarantine.
“I don’t really expect it to continue at this level because right now we’re basically the only game in town,” Self said. “There was literally nothing else for people to do for a month.”