PHOTO by Hal Tift Stephen Wagner, 25, assistant manager of Copper Creek Brewing Co. waits on customers Tuesday night.
Written by Hal Tift
Athens bars don’t fear a recession as much as they fear the summer months. Local bars are preparing, as usual, for the annual down season, but the economic downturn is not having much effect.
Some bars saw a drop in customers late last year following October’s economic slide and leading up to the December shopping season, but it didn’t last.
“Late November is when we felt it most,” said Stephen Wagner, assistant manager of Copper Creek Brewing Co., a bar on East Washington Street in downtown Athens. “The last four or five months have been really good.”
Since the summer began, though, Copper Creek has experienced what Wagner called an expected lull in business.
“Happy hour has been particularly slow,” Wagner said referring to the afternoon and evening. “The nights haven’t been that bad actually.” He has worked at the bar since April 2008.
Copper Creek isn’t facing anything it can’t handle, though. Wagner said that there were no employees released despite the lag in business, but there was a significant cut back in the number of shifts available to the bar’s employees.
Sarah Stone, 21, is a bartender at Flanagan’s Bar and Pub on East Clayton Street (also known as the Half Moon Pub). Stone said they, too, had retained all of their staff for the summer. Unlike Copper Creek, though, Flanagan’s didn’t cut many shifts.
“We might get one less shift a week,” Stone said. There are inevitably fewer students during the summer, she said, but there is enough business to keep bartenders working and to keep revenue flowing for the bars.
“It’s basically a direct result of how many students are enrolled at UGA,” said Nicole Henderson, a fifth-year Biology major from Covington, Ga., and a bartender at The Roadhouse on North Lumpkin Street.
Business can vary from one summer to the next if there are more students taking summer classes. “Two summers ago was really good,” Henderson said, “but last year was a lot slower.”
Henderson also said that it was not uncommon to see the bar mostly empty before 11:00 p.m. Afternoon business is slow all year for many bars in Athens, like Flanagan’s and Roadhouse, that draw much bigger crowds at night.
While the economy hasn’t greatly affected bars’ revenue, some bartenders have seen its effects. Henderson said that tip percentages have gone down as a result of the economy. People are just as willing to come out to the bars, she said, but they’re less willing to tip.
Edited by Sara Spigener
Athens bars don’t fear a recession as much as they fear the summer months. Local bars are preparing, as usual, for the annual down season, but the economic downturn is not having much effect.
Some bars saw a drop in customers late last year following October’s economic slide and leading up to the December shopping season, but it didn’t last.
“Late November is when we felt it most,” said Stephen Wagner, assistant manager of Copper Creek Brewing Co., a bar on East Washington Street in downtown Athens. “The last four or five months have been really good.”
Since the summer began, though, Copper Creek has experienced what Wagner called an expected lull in business.
“Happy hour has been particularly slow,” Wagner said referring to the afternoon and evening. “The nights haven’t been that bad actually.” He has worked at the bar since April 2008.
Copper Creek isn’t facing anything it can’t handle, though. Wagner said that there were no employees released despite the lag in business, but there was a significant cut back in the number of shifts available to the bar’s employees.
Sarah Stone, 21, is a bartender at Flanagan’s Bar and Pub on East Clayton Street (also known as the Half Moon Pub). Stone said they, too, had retained all of their staff for the summer. Unlike Copper Creek, though, Flanagan’s didn’t cut many shifts.
“We might get one less shift a week,” Stone said. There are inevitably fewer students during the summer, she said, but there is enough business to keep bartenders working and to keep revenue flowing for the bars.
“It’s basically a direct result of how many students are enrolled at UGA,” said Nicole Henderson, a fifth-year Biology major from Covington, Ga., and a bartender at The Roadhouse on North Lumpkin Street.
Business can vary from one summer to the next if there are more students taking summer classes. “Two summers ago was really good,” Henderson said, “but last year was a lot slower.”
Henderson also said that it was not uncommon to see the bar mostly empty before 11:00 p.m. Afternoon business is slow all year for many bars in Athens, like Flanagan’s and Roadhouse, that draw much bigger crowds at night.
While the economy hasn’t greatly affected bars’ revenue, some bartenders have seen its effects. Henderson said that tip percentages have gone down as a result of the economy. People are just as willing to come out to the bars, she said, but they’re less willing to tip.
Edited by Sara Spigener
Sara, Hal:
ReplyDeleteGreat change in this lead. I love the first sentence now:
"Athens bars don’t fear a recession as much as they fear the summer months."
That sets the story up perfectly and uses the repetition of "fear" to create a nice contrast between what you would expect to cause a concern -- the recession -- and what actually does -- the summer.
Here's a paragraph where you have information in a standalone sentence that could be worked more deftly into another sentence:
“Happy hour has been particularly slow,” Wagner said referring to the afternoon and evening. “The nights haven’t been that bad actually.” He has worked at the bar since April 2008.
That last sentence sort of hangs off the paragraph. Instead, work it into the attribution:
“Happy hour has been particularly slow,” Wagner, who has worked at the bar for about a year, said of the daily afternoon and evening rush. “The nights haven’t been that bad actually.”
Good job turning the cutline into a full sentence -- although, in the picture, he's not waiting on customers, he's posing for a picture. The better photo would be to actually shoot him waiting on customers. Action is almost always preferred to a posed shot.