Business & Tech

Business Catching Speed After Winter Storm

After nearly an entire week of empty stores and spotty business hours, owners are glad to be back.

The ice is finally thawing, and Snellville businesses are more thank thankful. It’s been a challenging week. After a historic and ice storm, owners are arriving back to a frenzy of work.

It’s catch-up time.

“I don’t like it when were not open,” said Becky Evans, owner of on Scenic Highway. “We have been busy since Wednesday. The phones have just really been ringing; we’re going to have a really good weekend”

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With a small business, she added, “You lose two days worth of income, it’s hard.”

The local bowling alley, for example, lost some 35 percent of its revenue for the week, said Geno Hill, general manager of .

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, a local flower shop, also lost revenue, but things were busily picking back up.

“We found ourselves in a whirlwind,” said Julie Eschbach, of her return to her floral business after the snowfall. “We’re glad to be back, of course.”

At the local flower shop, Eschbach said she sent the heat up to tropical to help avoid mishaps in the greenhouse. Although the plants were saved, delivers were another story. Monday and Tuesday there were no chance of deliveries.

“Of course, our business revolves around deliveries, so it was impacted greatly,” she said. “People could not come in and pick up, nor could we deliver.

Leah Cox had the same problem at her floral business, . Now, things are finally moving along.

“We been really busy,” she said on Friday. “We’ve been making up for four days.”

Despite the icy roads, Niko Patel also hurried back to his business as soon as he could. By Wednesday, was open like many others.

“Way bad,” he said of the impact to his store. “We opened on Wednesday, but still could do any businesses because all our phone lines were down.”

To make matters worse, burglars hit some of Patel’s neighboring businesses.

Police officials reported burglaries at , all in the same 2000 block of Scenic Highway, on the first night of the storm.

“Businesses are hurting, and then on top of it these people come in” and ransack his neighbors, leaving a mess for them to clean up. Patel was incredulous.

Although business was slow on Friday, he was hoping for a busy weekend.

Evans, owner of Bill Rhodes Bakery, said many years ago she had to close the business like she did this past week. But, then it was only for one day – not days.

To help bring business back, her daughter and co-owner Karen Williams helped clear the parking lot with her son-in-law, she said.

“I guess for Atlanta, we’re never really sure,” she added. “We knew if we could get here we would be here Monday, but obviously we couldn’t be here.”


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