As we enter the end of July and August, many New Canaan residents will bear the beach, mountain, and city traffic for annual summer vacation trips. With the decreased foot traffic, many merchants routinely describe business as slow during this time. NewCanaanite went around town to some local businesses to see how they actively avoid the end of summer sales slump.
Phil Williams, New Canaan Music
Phil Williams of New Canaan Music. Credit: Catherine Gorey
“How do we deal with the New Canaan Business Clear? We’re staying open our regular hours, a lot of businesses close for a week or reduce their hours, but we keep our lessons going year round. The sidewalk sale is a big part of keeping summer alive and going. We do our usual outreach and keep up business as usual.”
Carl Franco, Franco’s Wine Merchants
Carl Franco of Franco’s Wine Merchants. Credit: Catherine Gorey
“I know there’s a lot of people away, but whoever’s in town, although transient, everyone’s always entertaining. When they’re in town, they’re enjoying their backyard, the pool, getting together after playing a game of golf. So that crowd is always looking to get together with whoever else is in town and make the most of the social scene. So that’s how we see the summer traffic, the bottom line for us is really that whoever’s left in town is entertaining.”
Alex Stewart, Walter Stewart’s Market
Doug and Alex Stewart of Walter Stewart’s Market and Stewart’s Spirits. Credit: Michael Dinan
“Things definitely are winding down in town and people are off on vacations, but we still have a lot of things going on. We’re wrapping up our renovations, and hope to be done with those and ready when everyone comes back. One of the things we’re doing for the summer and has been very popular are our summer picnic meal boxes, they include an entree, side, dessert, and beverage. We offer them every day, but they definitely go hand in hand with the Summer Theatre of New Canaan’s performances and the Waveny concert series. Customers can go online and order them ahead of time for those events. They can be picked up at the store or there’s also an option to deliver it to the box office for summer theatre. So that’s been very popular during this time of year.”
Phyllis Weinstein of MacKenzies with her dog, Tahoe. Credit: Catherine Gorey
Phyllis Weinstein, MacKenzie’s
“We try to bring in new inventory, things that would be appropriate for people to send to kids at camp or vacation items. I do the buying and I try to match our inventory to the needs. One example is activity books kids can do in the car, and things like that.”