Business Owners Anticipate the Return of Students

At the start of each summer, College Park business owners watch as the bulk of their customers finish their finals, toss out the last of their red cups and take off for wherever it is they came from, not to surface again for three months.

"This summer has been horrible," said Bobby Karanovich, owner of Bagel Place, located across the street from campus. "It's going to be great when [the students] come back."

The Bagel Place has had to make some large expenditures in the last year, such as new cash registers and replacing the signage on the exterior of the building. So it is particularly eager to see more patrons come through. But other businesses are similarly enthusiastic about the impending return of university students, and the spending money that will inevitably be joining them.

Bruce Blum, the general manager of the soon-to-open Ledo's Restaurant, is delighted to be opening in accordance with the return of students to College Park.  The restaurant was originally slated to open earlier in the summer, but severe weather delayed those plans, possibly for the better, he said.

For one thing, the poor state of the economy has a less paralyzing effect on students, who generally don't strive to maintain full time jobs while in school. 

"That's one of the advantages of being located near campus," Blum said. "Despite the economic situation, they still need to eat, and they still like to have fun."

Blum has managed various other restaurants in downtown College Park over the years, and he said that while students do comprise a large percentage of their customer base, the restaurant will also rely on longtime residents, tour groups and summer school students to keep them afloat.

"The summer crowd definitely isn't as big," Blum said. "But we've had a lot of summer events, tournaments, stuff like that."

Stores that sell products with a particular "season" — textbooks, for instance, which are primarily sold at the beginning of each semester — anticipate the shortage of business in advance and are accustomed to the slowdown during off-peak times of the year.

Garett Sobotka, the assistant manager of Book Holders, which primarily sells text books, said that although the store is prepared for the lack of business during the summer, it still manages to make some money.

"We've been steady," he said. "Obviously, we're no where near as busy as we are during the beginning of the year or the semester, but we've stayed fairly busy."

Sobotka credits summer school classes for generating the majority of Book Holder's summer revenue.

"I don't know if summer school classes have gotten larger now or what," he said.

Regardless, Sobotka said the store makes enough money during peak times that management need not worry about the summer's decline in business.

"It's something we expect," he said. "In the summer, we spend our time taking care of other things around the store. It's the way the book business goes."

Other business owners simply take the same approach as their customers: They leave.

Berywn Café was closed for a week at the beginning of August, which owner Tal Brosh said is generally the most sluggish time of year for business.

"We take some time off when it's the slowest," he said. "We go to the beach."