Even two years after Dartmouth extended its winter interim period, Hanover retailers and restaurants still feel the pain of depressed economic activity from Thanksgiving until a week before Christmas, town manager Julia Griffin said.
The term calendar changed just as restaurants and retailers fully recovered from the 2008 recession, she added.
In order to combat the slump, business owners have begun offering promotions, new menu items and discounts to rev up earnings.
Market Table owner Nicky Barraclough said that though locals and tourists dine at the restaurant, Market Table still feels the absence of students and professors at the end of the year. Although Market Table added “more casual, lower-priced” items to its menu during the winter interim, Barraclough said this initiative failed to counteract the economic absence of the majority of the Dartmouth community.
Griffin said retailers and restaurants expected to lose student business, but did not anticipate the low number of Dartmouth faculty members in town.
The Canoe Club owner John Chapin said that his restaurant felt the absence of the additional people the College brings to the area: speakers, professors, administrators, recruiters, academic visitors and others who fall into the “tier beyond the student body itself.”
“The local people are the core of our business, but the Dartmouth community is the critical frosting on the cake,” Chapin said. “And it’s hard to have the frosting out of town.”
Dartmouth’s fall term calendar shift caused Chapin to invent ways of attracting customers, including special food events, a vegetarian menu and unique music offerings.
Salt Hill Pub owner Josh Tuohy said that the longer winter break caused a “measurable decline” in economic activity, but the decrease in business was not as much as he feared. Tuohy said that he would be happy if Dartmouth changed the calendar back, but the restaurant maintains a solid following from residents living in Hanover and Norwich and remain in town.
Tuohy said that a “silver lining” of the calendar switch, however, is that it allows increased ease in scheduling renovations and is a convenient time to encourage staff members to take vacation.
Everything But Anchovies also experienced low business levels, and tried to attract on-campus students through a meal promotion, marketing and catering manager Danielle Paro said.
The restaurant experienced the most notable change during late night hours, she said. As a result, the restaurant began closing at midnight, instead of 2 a.m., on weeknights, she said.
Beyond simply a financial impact, businesses can physically see the lack of student presence.
Owner of Khawachen/InnerAsia Kathy Harvard said that merchants observed a “ghost town” during the first year of Dartmouth’s extended winter break.
Jennifer Packard, public relations director for Blue Sky Restaurant Group, which runs Molly’s Restaurant and Bar and Jesse’s Restaurant, said that the aspect that changes most is the atmosphere inside the restaurant.
This December, the Canoe Club, Everything But Anchovies, Salt Hill Pub and Molly’s — along with other restaurants from around the area —participated in Restaurant Week, an inaugural promotional event designed by the Hanover Business Council.
In order to participate, restaurants supplied a fixed two-course lunch and three-course dinner menu with discounted prices. Restaurant Week was implemented in response to the decrease in commercial activity at the end of the year, Paro said.
“For most of the restaurants, it was a really great success,” Paro added.
This event — which occurred during the week of Dec. 6 through Dec. 14 — ran in conjunction with Celebrate the Season, a holiday festivities event that has been going on for several years.
While Restaurant Week was created to help businesses struggling during the winter interm period, other town businesses expressed that they only experienced minimal impacts from the lack of students.
Owner of Left Bank Books Nancy Cressman said that though her numbers do not reflect a decrease in business during the month of December, she was “proactive” in implementing a new customer appreciation night last year. Music, food and a 30 percent off sale accompanied this event, organized in response to the fact that the “streets were so quiet,” Cressman said.
Julie Von Bargen ’03, owner of Von Bargen Jewelry, said that her store has not experienced a substantial impact from the change in Dartmouth’s term calendar, but added that students are not a significant part of her store’s business.
The Dartmouth Co-op owner Gene Kohn ’60 said that Dartmouth’s extended break does not cause a disruption in business, but does require adjustment. Whereas the Dartmouth Co-op used to have two promotions at the end of the year — one prior to Thanksgiving and the other before finals — the extended winter break pushed sales into a more concentrated period of time. Many of these sales promotions are generally arranged around the Dartmouth football schedule, which was rearranged when the new term calendar was announced.
The fall term calendar changed in the 2012-2013 academic year as a response to rising plane ticket costs and a desire from professors to maintain continuity in their classes.
