Stores expect typical business decline during break; establishments with community focus do not expect drop

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Though holiday breaks are great for students, they are not usually great for local businesses in a college town.

Hungry Howie’s Pizza, 111 S. Mission St., experienced major setbacks in the past because the lack of students in town during holiday breaks. Manager Maggie Wyatt said the decrease in business is noticeable.

“Most of our customers are students, and during their breaks our sales go down,” she said. “We are normally open until 3 a.m. on the weekends, but we close at midnight because students are not here.”

The atmosphere of Menna’s Joint, 1418 S. Mission St., is geared toward the students, said Manager Gus Brush. Naturally sales decline when students go home.

It all begins the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Menna’s Joint encounters a drastic decline in sales, he said.

“We only receive around six sales an hour because the majority of students are gone by Wednesday,” Brush said. “Same goes for Friday and Saturday … even though it is black Friday 90 percent of our customers are students and they are gone.”

Last year, the whole month students were gone on Christmas break was dead for Menna’s, he said.

“This year is the first year that we are trying to branch out to the other demographics in the area and inform the working people we are a restaurant that they can come too,” Brush said. “One thing we are doing is hosting a special for 95.3 CFX, in an effort to spread the word.”

Other businesses face a less substantial impact form students leaving, including Biggby Coffee, 210 S. Mission St.

Store Manager Mickey Tarravallah said he only notices somewhat of a difference.

“Sales tend to go down 10 to 15 percent when students are not here,” he said. “Mount Pleasant is a small town and when students are not here it turns into a ghost town.”

Around 30,000 people leave for the holidays, but at the same time, teachers and other people of the community come in when they are on break, Tarravallah said.

“Most of our regular customers are not students, so it does not affect us as much as it would other businesses,” he said.

IHOP, 5245 E. Pickard St., is another business which does not anticipate a dent in sales because of students leaving for break.

Joel Cain, IHOP assistant general manager, said the clientele is mostly local, middle-aged people.

“Students leaving for break contain little impact to IHOP,” he said. “We do not notice anything too substantial.”

Family Video, 317 N. Mission St., also does not predict business to decline because of students leaving, said Store Manager Isha Walter.

There are still quite a few students that have jobs on campus or live in apartments that are still here for much of the duration of the break, she said.

“It really does not impact us much because it’s a holiday season, so we are busy anyway,” she said. “A lot of people that live around here come and rent movies, outside of students.”