Hey "Main Street USA", want to compete with bigger businesses? Here's a tip:

In My Humble Opinion
1

KEEP BETTER HOURS.

I want to patronize small and local businesses. I do. But it’s kind of hard to when they’re never open. Every time I want to go to a cool, local shop or chef-owned restaurant around here, they’re closed. Every time I want to eat at the cool little New Mexican place, it’s closed and I have to go somewhere else. Today when I wanted to eat at that nice little German joint, it was closed and I ended up going to Der Wienerschnitzel.

Yesterday I told my wife that cooler weather is coming and I thought it’d be fun to walk around the antique and thrift stores in downtown Glendale and look for a nice old quilt.

Now, this is a place that spent several years and god knows how much money repaving the streets, adding pedestrian-friendly traffic control measures and crosswalks, building a new civic plaza, remodeling the library, re-landscaping, paving the sidewalks in brick, etc etc etc to attract patrons. It has also apparently been rebranded “Old Towne Glendale”, according to all the lamppost flags.

So I get there this morning, throw my son in the stroller, and start walking around. I thought it was kind of weird that we were basically the only human beings in sight until I slowly started to realize that basically the entire place is closed. It’s Sunday.

Not only are all the shops closed, but half of them don’t even have their hours posted, so who can guess when to return? Of the half that do have their hours posted, half of them (and I am not joking here), have “ish” amended onto all of their hours. As in “Monday Noonish to 5ish”. Two shops even had some smartass sign that said something like “Open as early as 7 or as late as 12 or 1, close around 5 but really whenever I feel like leaving. Lately I’ve been here at all times except when I’m somewhere else.” I realize this is probably funny to someone on the planet, but I found it annoying.

Now I understand that these people have to have lives outside of work too, and they need a day off, but why not Monday, or Wednesday? Why not be closed during the day, during the week, when everyone else is at work anyway? Why pick the day when people want to walk around and shop to close your shop in the pedestrian district? Hell, banks don’t even keep banking hours anymore. My bank is open until 7pm during the week and 10:00 to 3:00 on Saturdays.

I went down there a few times about 7 years ago and knew that all of those shops kept very limited hours (and quit going down there because of it), but I thought for sure that now that all the revitalization projects are done they would’ve changed.

If I was the city of Glendale, I’d be pissed. I’d want to know where my return on all that investment is. Why did I choke off traffic for years (very effectively driving people away) and spend millions of dollars trying to revamp a district that is essentially closed on what could be its busiest day of the week? Haven’t these shopkeepers ever heard of the church crowd? I think Glendale should say, “you want to run a shop in our district that we invested in beautifying? You’re going to be open evenings and weekends.”

Get a clue, “Main Street”. It’s not 1950.

2

Thats when you slip notes under their door that say:

“I was at your store during convenient daylight hours with money to spend but you were humorously closed as per your posted hours. I’ll come back whenever I feel like it, unless I dont. In the meantime a far less whimsical big box store satisfied my needs. Good luck in business.”

3

And why, WHY, do people have a store or restaurant website… that doesn’t say when they’re open?

4

Haha, I will seriously consider doing that.

5

I hear you.

I tried to go to two different ma and pa BBQ joints that came highly recommended from all the locals. I walk into the first at 2:15pm on a weekday. The door is open, but they’re cleaning up a buffet. That’s okay, I have no problem ordering off the menu for a late lunch. No, they’re closing. At 2.

The second I decide to go to at 5pm on a Saturday. Nope. Closed – ALL DAY, every Saturday! Madness! Who are these rubes who open restaurants and decide they hate money so they better not be open on Saturday night!

6

So you’ve been to my erstwhile home town? My workday was 6:30am-6:00pm, courtesy of an involuntary transfer and the bus commute of the damned. I lived a block from the main street but the meat market, bakery, bank, and deli I liked all closed at 5:30. The meat market, bank and deli did not open on Sunday, and the bakery only to sell the leftovers from the week. On the up side, the nice Beijing family who kept the vegetable mart with all the awesome and cheap Asian sauces and ingredients until 8pm kept me in bananas, gai lan and rice noodles in hoisin for two years. They later opened a butcher counter in the store.

7

Hint- They really don’t want to compete with bigger businesses. That showdown ended over 20 years ago with mid sized downtown and business district retailers being blown out of the water by highway big box mega stores. Your expectation that they are champing at the bit to compete with Wal-Mart is kind of weird.

People expect 7 days a week access to shopping regardless of the size of the store or the context of the store’s operation. If someone is opening a quirky speciality or art shop etc. in a gentrified district they are usually not doing it in order to be open 7 days a week and make every last dollar possible.

Being put out that these little shops don’t have Sunday hours is kind of silly. You seem to think they should be scrambling after your Sunday dollars with a Wal-Mart like lust and they just aren’t. You seem almost offended as if they don’t care enough. Get over it.

Years ago the whole push for 7 day a week shopping was seen as vaguely grasping and distasteful. Now we’re expecting even little bitty shops to be there for us 7 days a week. Odd how contexts change.

8

It does seem to me that the only small shops still open are “hobby” businesses to keep a retiree or former SAHM occupied in her free time. You can’t make a living from them, won’t make a living from them, and nobody’s trying to make a living from them.

9

Well, that’s a barbeque joint for you. I’m surprised you could even find the place - half the time you can’t get to them from here.

ETA - the boyfriend and his business partner run a small camera shop. No, they are not open on Sunday or Monday, because somebody needs a day off at some point and you just can’t work 16 hour days seven days a week. Their hours are clearly posted, though. They are not, by the way, retirees or stay at home moms. Just regular small businessmen busting their asses all day. (In a very clearly marked way, though - I have no patience for people who don’t tell me when they’re going to be open.)

10

Fourthed.

And while we’re talking, make the “Hours” sign big enough to read from the street/parking lot. It’s doing me no good whatsoever if I have to get out of the car and walk through the pouring rain to find out that you closed half an hour ago.

Get a sign; make it clear, large and legible.

11

Of course, all businesses open to the public should be readily identifiable as open or closed long before one is close enough to read any notice of hours.

If they’re not, that’s a substantial design failing right there.

12

Somewhat related, there’s a hole in the wall bakery that sells bread and cookies. That’s it. Mr. Sali adores their marble cookies. Not only are they NOT open half the time I journey to that part of town (no hours posted, BTW), but they don’t have any marble cookies when they are open. It’s always ‘come back on Wednesday’, or ‘we sold all of them to the church people’ or ‘the guy who makes the marble cookies was out sick this week’. ??? I’ve tried calling up to reserve a dozen, but they don’t answer their phone.

13

Your attitude is a little silly. If they are opening a business, one assumes that they desire to be profitable. If the store has no interest in my business than I will just take it elsewhere.

14

Really? Certainly not in my experience and I’m surprised anyone would think that.

I live in a smallish town (pop. 50K) and our Main Street is all small to medium sized non-chain stores (except for the drugstore). They are all real businesses trying to survive. If they want to survive they do exactly what the OP is asking for- to be open during most (if not all) normal business hours and post the hours clearly.

15

I mostly don’t have this problem too much, but there is one independent bookstore in this city, for new books anyway. When it first opened, we would go in and spend money. But for a while now it’s been closed when we want to go to a bookstore, and we end up at Barnes & Noble instead. :frowning:

16

They can be open 3 hours a day, 2 days a week. What matters is that they are consistent about it.

17

That’s not strictly a bakery, I suspect. Please do not be rude to these folks.

Just sayin’.

18

I never would have suspected such a thing. I am so clueless about people.

19

I doubt that there is a law anywhere that requires profitability. If they are comfortable (financially and lifestyle-wise) with opening their little store at weird hours, then that’s entirely up to the owners. Maybe they just like the social aspects of running a store and aren’t overly concerned about profit.

20

uh huh. Like the dry cleaners in my childhood hometown that had posted hours 11:00am-11:30am Wednesdays.

Find another bakery :wink: