Local businesses use the Two Story Coffeehouse bulletin board to advertise their services.By Autumn Eckenbrecht
There’s only one vacant table in the café, and the tow truck driver is making his rounds next door; customers have a habit of parking at adjacent stores despite towing warnings. The manager makes a lap around the café, just in time to inform two customers that their cars are about to be hauled off.
The parking lot is full once again at Two Story Coffeehouse, a business in Five Points that opened last November. It’s a far cry from the dismal graphs in newspapers and on television screens—this summer’s numbers show an increase in unemployment by over 2 percent in Athens-Clarke County in the last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For manager Chris Barr, ever since news of the recession became pervasive in 2008, things haven’t been all that different.
“I’ve heard about places struggling, and I’ve heard about restaurants and businesses closing,” Barr said. “But I’ve always heard about that.”
What distinguishes successful businesses from the struggling ones is leadership through communication and a core vision, Barr said. For Two Story, that core vision has meant looking past competing with other coffee businesses and focusing on offering something unique and supporting other companies.
“Local businesses realize they’re up against something bigger than them anyway—they’re up against corporate, so it’s a lot better to band together and figure out how to be creative,” Barr said. “A lot of business owners get afraid. They get scared, and they say, ‘What’s going to happen?’ It’s a valid question, but many owners will make their decisions based on that fear, as opposed to making their decisions based on sound practice and what they know to be true.”
Fear didn’t stop Heather Cadle from opening Tena’s jewelry store on Aug. 3 in the heart of downtown.
“When you hear about the economy, it’s all doom and gloom, but we don’t worry ourselves with that,” Cadle said. “We just make sure the people walking in and out the door are happy.”
Cadle remembers the initial days of starting up a new Tena’s in Athens. She says she used every resource she could find—the Terry School of Business, the Downtown Development Authority, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and other nearby mom-and-pop stores for things as simple as “Where’s the water company?”
Even the owner of the store Tena’s replaced, Jane Foster of Foster’s Jewelers, stops by every now and then to help, Cadle said.
“People really want to see local downtown businesses survive,” Cadle said. “I can’t tell you how many people have come in and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here! We don’t need any more bars.’”
Like Foster’s Jewelers, which had operated in Athens for over 50 years before retiring, Farm Electric is also retiring after 52 years of service in Athens. Unlike Barr, Joseph Causey, 59, the owner of the hardware supply store, said he has felt the blows of the recession.
“It’s been dramatic. We’re wholesale, so we’ve been directly affected by the housing market. Business has been way off by about 35 to 40 percent in our numbers,” Causey said. “I spoke to one builder, and he said he hasn’t started a new house since September a year ago.”
With nearly 10 fewer staff members than he had a year ago, Starbucks manager Jason Corrigan also sees the changes in his numbers—which seem even more daunting when he sees the amount of Starbucks employees wanting to transfer to the Athens store.
The number is in the hundreds, and he can’t say yes to any of them.
“We haven’t been at the growth we need to be. I’ve tried to get Bulldog Bucks, but that’s been unsuccessful for us as a corporation,” Corrigan said. “They want to take 15 percent of my sale, and Starbucks won’t go for that.”
Nevertheless, Corrigan said life’s too short to worry about it. He said that, even if people are trying to be frugal by cutting their luxury expenses, a genuine customer connection will keep them coming back. In the meantime, he meets with other managers from businesses like Five Guys to discuss business strategy.
The story of how the nation’s economy is affecting Athens seems to be more about the solution rather than the problem. The remedy for local businesses—even the corporate ones—is using each other as resources so they can do more than just stay afloat. The same trend proves true for Barr, Cadle, Causey, and Corrigan.
“There’s a whole Five Points business association where a lot of managers and owners just get together and chat about what they can do to help one another,” Barr said. “It’s a give and take thing.”
Edited by Sarah Smith
