At least once a week, someone from West Linn restaurant Sushi Kuni travels to Seattle to pick up imported fresh seafood. This week, owner Agatha Chan said she took a risk and drove north through a winter storm to pick up this week's order.
“We have already paid for the order and cannot stop the delivery from Japan,” she said. “It's pretty dangerous, but we had to pick it up because we paid a broker to clear customs and the fish is just sitting at the airport.”
But the slippery roads have made it nearly impossible for Chan's 15 or so employees to get to work, and without staff she can't run the restaurant. Most of the fish is wasted.
For Chan, who opened the restaurant in July 2022, the week-long closure of the restaurant is “a significant financial burden.”
Sushi Kuni, a new restaurant in West Linn at 21450 Salamo Rd., was closed most of the week during the winter storm parade.
“I’m having so much trouble right now,” she said. “How am I going to pay the bills, rent and salaries of my workers since I had no income last week?”
Thousands of businesses lost sales during the week of snow and ice, along with power outages that led to closures and stockpiling. (Many suffered additional storm damage, including burst pipes.) Some, like grocery stores, may see little impact on their bottom line as customers who still needed something to eat stocked up before the storm and restocked their pantries afterward.
Others, like Chan's Restaurant, will be happy to see a surge after the storm, not to mention being able to make up for the sales lost from the week-long closure.
Todd Ruberg, a Lake Oswego-based senior partner and retail and consumer products analyst at consulting firm Simpactful, said businesses hit hardest by inclement winter weather are restaurants and small businesses that sell non-essential consumer goods, clothing and other gifts .
“Restaurants are doing the worst because people don’t typically eat out when things get back to normal,” Ruberg said. “Therefore, the sales lost during the event period are usually completely lost. You don’t get anything back from it.”
Likewise, small clothing stores rely on steady customer traffic for sales, but also don't have the same resources or workforce as large retailers when the weather is surprising.
“It’s the small businesses that are suffering the most. You know, where there are employees who are paid hourly,” he said.
And Ruberg said January and February are typically slower months for many companies. He said a weak January could mean some retailers need to discount early to clear inventory.
That's what Sadie Sifuentes, a florist and owner of Quad's Garden flower shop in Fairview, is seeing now. Her store has been closed since last Saturday, and last night she put all of her perishable inventory – like cut flowers – up for sale to hopefully drum up some sales, but also to make room for other inventory she's ordered.
Sifuentes said she had to cancel all flower delivery orders due to road conditions, and events she wanted to bring flowers to were canceled. She said she lost a lot of money ordering flowers for a funeral that was postponed until next week – she had to throw them away and will have to reorder them next week.
“Our store revenue pays for my house, my parents’ house and our bills at a store,” Sifuentes said. “During COVID, we restructured our business and learned different ways to generate revenue, but when there is so much snow and ice, it blocks everything.”
Sifuentes said she is in the process of outfitting her business for Valentine's Day, but now she's worried there could be another winter weather event like last year in February.
“If this had happened during Valentine’s week, we would have lost a lot more in numbers. Because think about how much roses cost at wholesale prices these days and how much we would have to have in stock and hope to sell,” she said. “You don’t even know what’s going to happen to the weather anymore.”
– Kristine de Leon; [email protected]