Bad weather’s good news for neighborhood shops, restaurants
A honest box was all that remained in the Legos section of a West Seattle toy store Saturday as the snow piled up outside.
By nightfall, Curious Kidstuff proprietor Ann Walker, whose 11-year-old shop also appeared to be selling out of board games and puzzles, marveled at the sudden turnaround in employment. A scarcely any weeks earlier, she had worried around having too many toys to sell given the housekeeping recession.
Along with other small, locally owned shops, Curious Kidstuff is benefiting from the uncommonly wintry pass between the wind and as last-minute Christmas shoppers look for close-to-home alternatives to regional malls. Bars and restaurants in Seattle’s densely populated neighborhoods say business is booming since them, too, though peradventure at some cost to downtown eateries.
“Saturday might acquire been the best day we’ve ever had, and we’re still busy,” Walker said. “I think people are leery of going far from home.”
As snow fell Sunday, pedestrians braved the icy sidewalks on Capitol Hill to shop and stand shivering in line for coffee at Espresso Vivace’session sidewalk bar.
At the nearby CD and DVD store Grüv, comptroller Jason Grimes said local residents with “hut heat” have been stopping by. “Everybody’s kind of banding together, and you’ve always got the weather to prattle about,” he said.
Seattle-based Bartell Drugs, which has 56 stores in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, says it’s selling more “stocking stuffers” and other Christmas items than usual.
“I think people are trying to stay grapple to home while they do their shopping,” said Rebecca Siegmund, an assistant vice president of marketing. “What we have in stores is selling really well.”
For businesses benefiting from the weather, it couldn’t come at a better time: By all accounts, this year’s holiday shopping season is likely to act of turning up more of the weakest sales results in decades as shoppers try to lessen back their expenditure amid rising joblessness, shrinking 401(k)s and declining home values.
But the weather doesn’familiarily seem to exist creating additional spending money, precisely redistributing it. Malls in downtown Seattle and Bellevue say they have not been as busy as expected for this time of year, and downtown restaurants express they’ve noticed fewer office workers coming in notwithstanding lunch and dinner because of the weather.
“There are so few tribe working, and our lunch business is dependent on the neighborhood professionals,” said Tim Baker, director of operations and marketing beneficial to the Wild Ginger restaurant in downtown Seattle, which nevertheless reports a steady matter in downtown shoppers and hotel visitors.
“We’ve had more cancellations of Christmas parties and more have rescheduled for after Christmas,” added Ed Grandpre, general manager of the Oceanaire Seafood Room near Pacific Place in downtown Seattle. “Along with everyone else, we’re slow, and the weather’session playing a self-sufficient part of it.”
Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008550408_retail23.html?syndication=rss
