The summer preview

Every spring break, students of all ages are let out of the confines of their normal schedules to make the most of their free week. While some families use this time to get away from their hometowns and enjoy luxury vacations, others prefer to relax in their homes. With the majority of their day now being free, these students who stay home must find ways in which to occupy themselves. This leads many to explore their downtown shops.

The shops and restaurants of downtown Mount Holly have just experienced a taste of what customer base they will be seeing when summer is here, school is out and the weather is sunny and warm.

“As soon as spring break hits, our daytime business picks up because generally we are a night time business,” said Vincent Amico, the owner of Vincent’s Ice Cream shop on High Street. “After work, after school, but during spring break everyone is off. Some people take vacations but the kids are off and when the kids are off they end up coming to buy ice cream.”

Amico says that he notices an uprising in families coming in to buy ice cream as well as a younger crowd coming during the day. This results in not only an uptick in their consumer bases but also a change in when their customers come to buy. 

“You have a younger crowd coming during the day,”Amico said. “We actually have a younger crowd coming period because they show up at night too.”

While some businesses notice these types of changes occurring during the week of spring break, others don’t notice much of a difference especially if their customer base is of an older variety. Some, such as Linda Smith, the owner of Endless Treasures in Millrace, says that the uptick in business during the week is often unpredictable. 

“I tend to get a lot more college students browsing around, but it’s very unpredictable although I have an age group of probably from 18-mid twenties coming in on a regular basis,” she said. “It’s really hard to tell [whether business will increase] because business is very unpredictable since covid but I am hoping for at least a 15% increase.”

Melanie Wilbur, the owner of Cerridwen’s Hearth, notices the same patterns as Smith. She also relates that business is quite unpredictable but for an alternative reason: weather. 

“I don’t really see much of a difference here in Millrace,” she said. “Our people come and we’ll have an uptick in kids and families usually but other than that, not really much difference. A lot of the time around here, since they are all walking shops, it really just depends on the weather. If the weather is nice, well get more people out and about but I don’t think it’s too impactful one way or another.”

There are a variety of factors that come into play when considering whether or not owners experience differences in their business during the week of spring break. These include but are not limited to weather, type of business, location, typical demographic as well as customer base in general. However, business owners are bound to see an uptick in customers over the course of the week due to kids actually having time to explore the amenities of their hometown.