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September 28, 2009
Small-Business Owners Are Coping, and Feeling Grateful for the Bright Spots
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
A restaurant owner, squeezed by a slump in sales and growing debt to his landlord, discontinues his health insurance. A contractor decides not to replace a member of his small crew who quit. An industrial bicycle maker starts selling to universities, prisons and zoos. For a quintet of small businesses that The New York Times has been tracking for the past year, the persistent recession has hurt some more than others. As fall began, some cautious optimism about a recovery crept into recent interviews conducted by Patrick McGeehan, Erik Olsen and Gabriel Johnson.
Georgette Blau
Georgette Blau, 35, is president of On Location Tours, a Manhattan-based company that offers entertainment-themed tours of New York locations from movies like “Sex and the City” and television shows like “Gossip Girl” for about $40. Tourism from Europe rebounded more quickly than many tour operators had expected, providing a pleasant surprise, Ms. Blau said. Customers have started tipping again but they still are not paying up for premium-priced limousine tours, she said. She said she has decided to raise prices by about 5 percent next year.
I am definitely less worried. I was kind of nervous, especially around January, and thinking, oh my God, we’re going back to 2005. We always hold our breath in January and February in tourism. I was so on edge I didn’t know what to expect. We’re still a little bit on edge. I’ve heard the numbers are down 5 percent overall in New York. We’re 20 percent above 2007 and about 15 percent below 2008.
We’re seeing not only more Italians and French, but, specifically, younger Italians and French who are noticing how much cheaper New York is. This summer, we got tons and tons of people just post-college who were staying in hostels. So many of them are saying that they are staying in hostels or hotels that are becoming more affordable. The hotels literally went from $400 a night to $150.
The streets were flooded with tourists. Whenever we ask people in the international crowd, they don’t really know what the recession is. So we say, “We’re not going to tell you, just keep spending.”
One thing that definitely happened over the winter and spring was our tour guides were not getting tipped. We get the sense that people don’t bring any extra money with them. If the tour guides are lucky, they’ll get a dollar from a lot of the students.
I keep hearing of people losing their jobs, so I’m just hopeful. I’m still being cautious. I really don’t feel like we need to hire anybody more. But I happen to be hiring a salesperson to replace someone who is leaving. We’ve had a flood of résumés. Last time, we had a trickle of résumés. This time, not only have I gotten 45 to 50, but literally two weeks after I posted the job I’m still getting résumés.
Wayne Sosin
Wayne Sosin, 55, the president of Worksman Cycles in Ozone Park, Queens, has had to come up with alternative uses for the industrial tricycles and heavy-duty bicycles his company has traditionally sold to auto plants and other big factories and warehouses. New sales to universities, zoos and prisons have helped. Worksman has called back some laid-off workers and increased hours for others.
The economy is still suffering obviously, and a lot of our customers in the automotive field are going to take a while to bounce back. But we’ve found some new markets for old products and it seems to be turning in the right direction for us. So it’s been pretty exciting the last couple of months.
We’re always busiest in the spring. This year we got off to a slow start. The economy definitely had a lot of people watching their pennies and holding back on orders. Unfortunately, on the East Coast the weather was awful for the bicycle industry in May and June. There was so much rain and dreariness, it definitely put a hurting on the market for recreational bikes and trikes in the whole Northeast. But as the months have passed, there’s been some uptick in our business activity.
For us the challenge was that we saw that our core customers — the G.M.’s, Fords and Chryslers — were certainly not going to be able to support us with their normal level of business, as they were shuttering factories, laying off employees. So we really had to come up with an alternate strategy of finding other markets.
We looked around and said, well, what kind of environment would be appropriate for using industrial-grade tricycles or heavy-duty bicycles? One of the ones we found was the federal prison systems. We’ve established about 20 federal prisons or so that are now using tricycles in a trial basis to replace some of the motor vehicles that they were using, both for the prison population and for their own staffs. So that’s one of the exciting markets. University bike-share programs is another one. Princeton University has selected Worksman Cycles for the bikes that they’re going to use for their student bike-share program. They’ll have 100 bicycles available for their students to ride.
We’ve actually brought back a few of the employees that we had to furlough for a while. That was wonderful to be able to do. We’re actually in the process now actively of looking for some sheet-metal mechanics. So we should be adding some staff pretty soon. We’re up a little bit in employment from where we were and the number of hours that people are working. We’re almost back to working the regular 40-hour weeks, in fact working some overtime, which is encouraging. So it’s going in the right direction.
Mouhamad Shami
Mouhamad Shami, 54, the owner of Alfanoose, a Middle Eastern restaurant on Maiden Lane in the financial district, says he owes his landlord almost $25,000 for property taxes and was forced to cancel his health insurance just after having an operation. With fewer orders coming from big banks, he is trying to hold on until his son finishes college next year and joins him full time.
Between my overhead and the drop in the business I couldn’t continue with my health insurance coverage. I dropped it at the beginning of this year.
I fell here. They were mopping the floor. I didn’t go to the doctor for X-rays or anything. I just went to an acupuncturist on Nassau Street and he said nothing is broken. So I was in pain for about six to eight weeks.
I work from, like, 10 o’clock in the morning till 10:30 at night. I haven’t been able to take any time off except for the last year, when I did a hernia operation. But I took only one week off. For the past six years now, I haven’t taken vacation.
I just hired one guy. I’m getting tired, to tell you the truth. I was pulling the work for more than two people, three people as a matter of fact. Now I start to feel it. You know I’m not a kid anymore. Sometimes, believe it or not, I feel like the weight of my upper body cannot carry my legs anymore. I’m hoping again, you know, that things they will get better. If they don’t, I’m just going to let him go.
I’m hoping that things they will go back to normal. If the rest of the companies they start making profits like Goldman Sachs and like Chase Manhattan bank, the area, it will survive and it will revive itself. So that’s what we’re hoping for.
If I can’t keep up, then I’m going to look for a smaller place. Then I’ll take a loan to set up because I’ll be confident. With the amount of business that I’m making right now, I’ll be able to survive in a less-overhead, smaller place. This place, it means so much to me. I built it up from scratch. I keep trying to convince myself that I’ll be able to save it, I’ll be able to save it. So I’m going to give it one more chance till the end of this year.
Ruben Villasante
Ruben Villasante, 47, owns a small contracting firm, V & V Construction, that specializes in painting and home renovations in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Most of his customers are calling him for repairs and repainting, not kitchen replacements or other renovation projects. One member of his four-man crew quit this summer, but Mr. Villasante said that he would wait for business to pick up before replacing him.
Business is like it was six months ago. It didn’t keep falling and it didn’t pick up either. People are struggling. There’s no money outside. There’s no loans. Houses are not selling. Therefore, basically what we’re doing are repairs, not renovations. We’re redoing a porch and have another porch coming up. We’re painting here and there.
Before, I used to have lined up for the next year already two or three months of work, but that’s not happening this year. There’s a lot of talking about doing something but there’s nothing on paper already set. It’s not “put me down for March,” “put me down in April.” What is happening is, “I’ll call you in the spring,” “I’m going to give you a call when the weather gets better.”
Money’s not the issue. The issue’s competition. It used to be there was a lot of work to do and people didn’t have to ask prices. Now, people have two or three bids on a job. If I get a new customer, I know I’m not going to be the only one bidding on it.
It looks a lot better here than in Florida. I was in Florida four weeks ago and everything is so quiet. I was in one of those big malls at 10 a.m. and they had all the salespeople and all the lights on and just two customers. I was thinking, how do they stay in business?
Now I have three men. One just left. I didn’t have to rehire. It’s too close to the winter. Winter comes and there’s not much we can do outside. We’re going to handle what we have until December and then regroup in March.
Michael Menna
Michael Menna, 46, owns Menna’s Quality Meats and Salumeria, his family’s 50-year-old meat market in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. The cool, wet start to the summer cut into sales of meat for the barbecue, Mr. Menna said. On the flip side, the store’s power bills were low, allowing Mr. Menna to pay down a debt to Con Edison that built up as the recession dragged on. He closed for a week in August to go on a family vacation.
Business is not back to where it’s supposed to be, but we’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel. We lost all of June and half of July to the weather but we saved on Con Ed. So that helped. I didn’t put the air on until August, so that was a big savings.
People are still being somewhat frugal, but they’re starting to buy again. Hopefully after the summer, we’ll get back on a regular schedule. August was a little quiet, as it’s expected to be because of people going on vacation. Right after Labor Day, you get a nice shot in the arm. Hopefully, we’ll have a nice consistent fall right into the busy holiday season.
It’s been a while since it was hopping. But you see signs of it coming back.
We’re just staying on kind of a skeleton crew, keeping the hours to a minimum. Everybody’s been pitching in. A lot of people are taking on more jobs in the store, including myself. Sometimes people complain that they’re doing too many jobs. Sometimes we need to have a meeting about that and remind everybody where we’re at and that everybody needs to help each other out.
I’ve just tried to get a little more aggressive with advertising. Trying to get some more bargains out for the customers so they come into the store.
This was a family business that my dad and my uncles, like 40 years ago, started. Things were so much different then. Everybody shopped at the local butcher. It’s not like that any more.
We’ve been around a long time. We’re a little bit of a landmark here. So we’re going to try to keep it a landmark.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/ny...l?ref=nyregion
A restaurant owner, squeezed by a slump in sales and growing debt to his landlord, discontinues his health insurance. A contractor decides not to replace a member of his small crew who quit. An industrial bicycle maker starts selling to universities, prisons and zoos. For a quintet of small businesses that The New York Times has been tracking for the past year, the persistent recession has hurt some more than others. As fall began, some cautious optimism about a recovery crept into recent interviews conducted by Patrick McGeehan, Erik Olsen and Gabriel Johnson.
Georgette Blau
Georgette Blau, 35, is president of On Location Tours, a Manhattan-based company that offers entertainment-themed tours of New York locations from movies like “Sex and the City” and television shows like “Gossip Girl” for about $40. Tourism from Europe rebounded more quickly than many tour operators had expected, providing a pleasant surprise, Ms. Blau said. Customers have started tipping again but they still are not paying up for premium-priced limousine tours, she said. She said she has decided to raise prices by about 5 percent next year.
I am definitely less worried. I was kind of nervous, especially around January, and thinking, oh my God, we’re going back to 2005. We always hold our breath in January and February in tourism. I was so on edge I didn’t know what to expect. We’re still a little bit on edge. I’ve heard the numbers are down 5 percent overall in New York. We’re 20 percent above 2007 and about 15 percent below 2008.
We’re seeing not only more Italians and French, but, specifically, younger Italians and French who are noticing how much cheaper New York is. This summer, we got tons and tons of people just post-college who were staying in hostels. So many of them are saying that they are staying in hostels or hotels that are becoming more affordable. The hotels literally went from $400 a night to $150.
The streets were flooded with tourists. Whenever we ask people in the international crowd, they don’t really know what the recession is. So we say, “We’re not going to tell you, just keep spending.”
One thing that definitely happened over the winter and spring was our tour guides were not getting tipped. We get the sense that people don’t bring any extra money with them. If the tour guides are lucky, they’ll get a dollar from a lot of the students.
I keep hearing of people losing their jobs, so I’m just hopeful. I’m still being cautious. I really don’t feel like we need to hire anybody more. But I happen to be hiring a salesperson to replace someone who is leaving. We’ve had a flood of résumés. Last time, we had a trickle of résumés. This time, not only have I gotten 45 to 50, but literally two weeks after I posted the job I’m still getting résumés.
Wayne Sosin
Wayne Sosin, 55, the president of Worksman Cycles in Ozone Park, Queens, has had to come up with alternative uses for the industrial tricycles and heavy-duty bicycles his company has traditionally sold to auto plants and other big factories and warehouses. New sales to universities, zoos and prisons have helped. Worksman has called back some laid-off workers and increased hours for others.
The economy is still suffering obviously, and a lot of our customers in the automotive field are going to take a while to bounce back. But we’ve found some new markets for old products and it seems to be turning in the right direction for us. So it’s been pretty exciting the last couple of months.
We’re always busiest in the spring. This year we got off to a slow start. The economy definitely had a lot of people watching their pennies and holding back on orders. Unfortunately, on the East Coast the weather was awful for the bicycle industry in May and June. There was so much rain and dreariness, it definitely put a hurting on the market for recreational bikes and trikes in the whole Northeast. But as the months have passed, there’s been some uptick in our business activity.
For us the challenge was that we saw that our core customers — the G.M.’s, Fords and Chryslers — were certainly not going to be able to support us with their normal level of business, as they were shuttering factories, laying off employees. So we really had to come up with an alternate strategy of finding other markets.
We looked around and said, well, what kind of environment would be appropriate for using industrial-grade tricycles or heavy-duty bicycles? One of the ones we found was the federal prison systems. We’ve established about 20 federal prisons or so that are now using tricycles in a trial basis to replace some of the motor vehicles that they were using, both for the prison population and for their own staffs. So that’s one of the exciting markets. University bike-share programs is another one. Princeton University has selected Worksman Cycles for the bikes that they’re going to use for their student bike-share program. They’ll have 100 bicycles available for their students to ride.
We’ve actually brought back a few of the employees that we had to furlough for a while. That was wonderful to be able to do. We’re actually in the process now actively of looking for some sheet-metal mechanics. So we should be adding some staff pretty soon. We’re up a little bit in employment from where we were and the number of hours that people are working. We’re almost back to working the regular 40-hour weeks, in fact working some overtime, which is encouraging. So it’s going in the right direction.
Mouhamad Shami
Mouhamad Shami, 54, the owner of Alfanoose, a Middle Eastern restaurant on Maiden Lane in the financial district, says he owes his landlord almost $25,000 for property taxes and was forced to cancel his health insurance just after having an operation. With fewer orders coming from big banks, he is trying to hold on until his son finishes college next year and joins him full time.
Between my overhead and the drop in the business I couldn’t continue with my health insurance coverage. I dropped it at the beginning of this year.
I fell here. They were mopping the floor. I didn’t go to the doctor for X-rays or anything. I just went to an acupuncturist on Nassau Street and he said nothing is broken. So I was in pain for about six to eight weeks.
I work from, like, 10 o’clock in the morning till 10:30 at night. I haven’t been able to take any time off except for the last year, when I did a hernia operation. But I took only one week off. For the past six years now, I haven’t taken vacation.
I just hired one guy. I’m getting tired, to tell you the truth. I was pulling the work for more than two people, three people as a matter of fact. Now I start to feel it. You know I’m not a kid anymore. Sometimes, believe it or not, I feel like the weight of my upper body cannot carry my legs anymore. I’m hoping again, you know, that things they will get better. If they don’t, I’m just going to let him go.
I’m hoping that things they will go back to normal. If the rest of the companies they start making profits like Goldman Sachs and like Chase Manhattan bank, the area, it will survive and it will revive itself. So that’s what we’re hoping for.
If I can’t keep up, then I’m going to look for a smaller place. Then I’ll take a loan to set up because I’ll be confident. With the amount of business that I’m making right now, I’ll be able to survive in a less-overhead, smaller place. This place, it means so much to me. I built it up from scratch. I keep trying to convince myself that I’ll be able to save it, I’ll be able to save it. So I’m going to give it one more chance till the end of this year.
Ruben Villasante
Ruben Villasante, 47, owns a small contracting firm, V & V Construction, that specializes in painting and home renovations in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Most of his customers are calling him for repairs and repainting, not kitchen replacements or other renovation projects. One member of his four-man crew quit this summer, but Mr. Villasante said that he would wait for business to pick up before replacing him.
Business is like it was six months ago. It didn’t keep falling and it didn’t pick up either. People are struggling. There’s no money outside. There’s no loans. Houses are not selling. Therefore, basically what we’re doing are repairs, not renovations. We’re redoing a porch and have another porch coming up. We’re painting here and there.
Before, I used to have lined up for the next year already two or three months of work, but that’s not happening this year. There’s a lot of talking about doing something but there’s nothing on paper already set. It’s not “put me down for March,” “put me down in April.” What is happening is, “I’ll call you in the spring,” “I’m going to give you a call when the weather gets better.”
Money’s not the issue. The issue’s competition. It used to be there was a lot of work to do and people didn’t have to ask prices. Now, people have two or three bids on a job. If I get a new customer, I know I’m not going to be the only one bidding on it.
It looks a lot better here than in Florida. I was in Florida four weeks ago and everything is so quiet. I was in one of those big malls at 10 a.m. and they had all the salespeople and all the lights on and just two customers. I was thinking, how do they stay in business?
Now I have three men. One just left. I didn’t have to rehire. It’s too close to the winter. Winter comes and there’s not much we can do outside. We’re going to handle what we have until December and then regroup in March.
Michael Menna
Michael Menna, 46, owns Menna’s Quality Meats and Salumeria, his family’s 50-year-old meat market in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. The cool, wet start to the summer cut into sales of meat for the barbecue, Mr. Menna said. On the flip side, the store’s power bills were low, allowing Mr. Menna to pay down a debt to Con Edison that built up as the recession dragged on. He closed for a week in August to go on a family vacation.
Business is not back to where it’s supposed to be, but we’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel. We lost all of June and half of July to the weather but we saved on Con Ed. So that helped. I didn’t put the air on until August, so that was a big savings.
People are still being somewhat frugal, but they’re starting to buy again. Hopefully after the summer, we’ll get back on a regular schedule. August was a little quiet, as it’s expected to be because of people going on vacation. Right after Labor Day, you get a nice shot in the arm. Hopefully, we’ll have a nice consistent fall right into the busy holiday season.
It’s been a while since it was hopping. But you see signs of it coming back.
We’re just staying on kind of a skeleton crew, keeping the hours to a minimum. Everybody’s been pitching in. A lot of people are taking on more jobs in the store, including myself. Sometimes people complain that they’re doing too many jobs. Sometimes we need to have a meeting about that and remind everybody where we’re at and that everybody needs to help each other out.
I’ve just tried to get a little more aggressive with advertising. Trying to get some more bargains out for the customers so they come into the store.
This was a family business that my dad and my uncles, like 40 years ago, started. Things were so much different then. Everybody shopped at the local butcher. It’s not like that any more.
We’ve been around a long time. We’re a little bit of a landmark here. So we’re going to try to keep it a landmark.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/ny...l?ref=nyregion