EG Businesses Cash In On Presidents' Day

For EG students, school vacation week means five days without homework and teachers, but for local businesses it means seven busy days of sales.

Even with a dusting of snow and freezing temperatures, Main Street businesses were bustling with activity this morning.  While sales aren’t anywhere near summer highs yet this year, business owners said they were seeing a bump in sales from recent days of warmer weather and vacation-related business.

“For us the snow actually helps business because we do snowboards too,” said Guido Silvestri, an owner of Civil located at 88 Main St. “I’ve noticed there are more kids in today, business is already up for today so I would say school vacation helps too.”

School vacation is helping another business in town too, said Kerrie Streker, head waitress at Steve Fillipou’s Twisted Pizza, also on Main Street. Youngsters love pizza and she said business is already booming three days into student’s week off.

“Yesterday was phenomenal, today has already been busy with families for lunch and I expect the same tonight,” she said. “It’s the usual with school vacation week.”

Another Main Street business was benefitting from the mid-February holiday today as well, Symposium Books, located at 247 Main St.

A clerk at the store, Candace Larrivee, said business on Monday was turning out to be better than the average winter afternoon. The bookstore, which opened in September, has been augmenting slow winter months with online sales.

“Business is definitely a little better when it’s warmer, primarily because of walking traffic.”

Maggie Brewer and Matthew Browne browsed the store’s selection today around 1:30 p.m. looking for a couple of good books to curl up with on a cold winter afternoon.

“I like to come here often,” said Brewer. She said she frequents the bookstore after indulging at Fat Belly’s pub next door.

Down the street at Stephanie Rapoza, an employee, said today’s minor snowstorm was helping business rather than deterring it, as has been the norm for the larger snowstorms of the winter. She said people came in to warm up with coffee and tasty treats.

Several local shops remained closed today, but in all, businesses reported recent warm days and today’s holiday were impacting sales for the better.