PAPILLION, Neb. (KMTV)– For businesses like The Book Nook, the cancellation hit especially hard. Winter Wonderland is the busiest day of the year for the store, bringing in about 5% of its yearly income.
- Papillion's Winter Wonderland cancellation due to Saturday's snowstorm cost The Book Nook 5% of its yearly income on what's typically their busiest day.
- Grace Pizza managed to recover 60% of expected revenue by pivoting quickly, but staff hours were still cut due to the event cancellation.
- Local businesses are participating in this Saturday's Cookie Crawl to help recoup losses from the cancelled Winter Wonderland event.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Saturday's snowstorm forced Papillion city leaders to make a difficult decision: cancel the annual Winter Wonderland event that brings hundreds of neighbors downtown to celebrate small businesses.
For businesses like The Book Nook, the cancellation hit especially hard. Owner DaRonn Washington said Winter Wonderland is the busiest day of the year for the store, bringing in about 5% of its yearly income.
"I didn't believe it at first, I had to look and research," Washington said.
They have been preparing and buying products for the event for the last three months, according to Washington. This year the shop only made a fraction of what they typically make during the celebration.
"We opened simply because we had put a lot, invested a lot into it. I know you can't control Mother Nature but it was a little disheartening for us," Washington said.
Last year the event was the second highest revenue day for Grace Pizzeria. Typically it serves pizza by the slice outside. This year the restaurant was able to pivot after hearing the news and find other ways to bring in revenue. They managed to make about 60% of what they usually do, but some of the staff felt the impact.
"We scheduled throughout the week to make sure we had enough staff, people could get their hours on that Saturday because it was such big day so by having to eliminate some peoples shift it does impact quite a bit of people," Joe Gomez, partner at Grace Pizza, said.
The Book Nook said they are participating in Papillion's Cookie Crawl and trying to plan new events through the month to recoup some of the lost profits. The Cookie Crawl is happening this Saturday. Washington said he hopes neighbors come out to support these small businesses.
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