Store Closings A Sign Of The Times: Owners Cite Economy Among Reasons For Their Decisions

FALMOUTH- As Washington politicians scramble to rescue a toppling Wall Street in order to safeguard “Main Street,” in Falmouth several businesses have quietly closed this month, with owners citing the economy.
Oolala, the gift and home furnishings store in the Queens Buyway that consolidated its two stores into one in April, announced its closing on Labor Day weekend.
Lisa M. Kerr, a longtime summer resident of Falmouth, who with her friend Bethann R. Ryan, a year-round resident, opened the gift store in 2000 and a few years later, opened the home store, said they decided to close the store for a variety of reasons, but the economy was definitely in the mix.
“It’s difficult for a small business to survive in this economy in Falmouth,” Ms. Kerr said.
But Ms. Kerr said closing the store also coincides with changes in her life as her father, whom she helped to care for, recently died, and she is planning a big move, to Barcelona, Spain.
When the partners consolidated their two stores in April, they planned to stay longer, but when sales dipped in the summer and with the lease running out in December, they decided to close the store altogether.
Ms. Kerr said she has no regrets, having always wanted to open a store, and Oolala’s accent on contemporary design was something the two have a passion for. The store had “a really loyal customer base,” Ms. Kerr said, and those people always supported the store. But over the past summer, she noticed tourists were making smaller purchases. “I noticed a change. There was a small shift,” she said.
Ms. Kerr said sales had been dipping over the past several years and this summer was definitely down from last summer.
With a gift store, stocking up for Christmas is a major undertaking, and Ms. Kerr said they did not want to take that risk in this economy, “with no guarantees that’s going to sell.”
The store has been basically cleared out during a 20 percent off sale that began August 30, and now they are selling the displays.
J. McLaughlin, the New York-based clothing chain that opened on Main Street in the summer of 2006, announced its intention to close last week.
Store manager Andrea Lawrence of Falmouth, who has been the manager of the store for six months, said as the reason for closing, “definitely the economy.” But she said the company has 43 other stores mostly on the East Coast and does not plan to close others.
The company opened up stores on Martha’s Vineyard this summer and on Nantucket a couple of years ago. Both of those stores are doing well, Ms. Lawrence said. The Falmouth store, she said, “never did the numbers of the other stores in the company.”
Ms. Lawrence said, “The whole year was down in general from the previous year,” estimating sales were down “at least 20 percent.”
As for her plans, Ms. Lawrence said she intends to go back to college for studies in the medical technician field, taking classes at Cape Cod Community College.
The store has a lease until the end of December, and Ms. Lawrence said the closing sale will continue until then.
Another business that closed recently was Quiznos, the sandwich shop on Teaticket Highway, which had just opened one year earlier.
The sign on the door of the establishment, which is next to the long-closed Joe’s Driving Range, reads, “Closed for good. Sorry and thanks.”
The owner, James C. Maggio of North Falmouth had at first tried to open the franchise in the building next to Pi Bistro on Davis Straits, but that plan was scrapped because of lack of parking and other issues cited by the Falmouth Planning Board.
The building he chose just up the road had been the home of several fast food restaurants over the years including Honey Dew Donuts, Taco Shell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and, originally, A&W.
“I think it was definitely the economy,” Mr. Maggio said. Noting that Quiznos sells “a premium sub,” he said other sandwich shops sandwiches cost about 20 to 25 percent less than his did.
Mr. Maggio said he is not sure whether the location of the store hurt him or helped him. On the one hand, there is always a lot of traffic, but there is also the fact that, because of the traffic, “year-round residents try to avoid that street like the plague.”
Mr. Maggio said he believes his five employees have already found work but he, himself, is still looking, hoping to find something in the restaurant industry.
As to whether he has any regrets on opening the business, Mr. Maggio said, “I lost a lot of money, so I have a lot of regret about that.” But he said he is also glad he gave it a try.
Mr. Maggio said the business started strong last summer but then dipped. The spring was slow and summer was up but not nearly enough.
He said he was making $700 to $800 per day in the winter but only $1,000 per day in the summer, and he needed about 50 percent more just to meet all the obligations of the business.
He said he believes gas prices definitely played a role in his shrinking business, which consisted mainly of blue collar workers, like landscapers, painters, and utility workers. “They would bring their own lunch or skip lunch,” he said, though he noted his large parking lot was one of the only places guys driving really large trucks could pull in and park. “I kept getting that business,” he said.
The Falmouth Cinema Pub, which opened less than a year ago, simply stopped showing movies earlier this month, without posting any signs about the closing of the business.
With the marquee still listing films in the cinema’s three theaters and the lights on inside the cinema lobby, people continue to peer through the plate glass doors at showtimes, wondering what is going on. The owners of the business could not be reached for comment, but in the same week, they closed their restaurant Ma Glockner’s in Bellingham. Christopher Ballarino of Bellingham told the Milford Daily News that the restaurant was a victim of the economy. Ma Glockner’s, which opened in the 1930s, was said to be the oldest restaurant in town.
“Everything is going up too fast to keep up with,” he said in an article in the September 16 edition of the Daily News. Mr. Ballarino’s other cinema pub, Route One Cinema Pub in North Attleboro, which shows second-run features, remains open.
In an interview with The Falmouth Enterprise last December, Mr. Ballarino said he had owned the Route One Cinema Pub for nine years and Ma Glockner’s for 11 years. When he came before selectmen in May 2007 applying for a license for the cinema pub, he said he was in the process of selling his other two businesses.
Mr. Ballarino had done a major renovation on the Falmouth Mall movie theater in order to transform it into a cinema pub where people can sit at tables and have waitress service during the show.
When he opened last December, Mr. Ballarino said he was hiring 35 employees from the Upper Cape area at the new business. He said he was commuting from Bellingham to run the business.
Before Mr. Ballarino opened the cinema pub at Falmouth Mall, the movie theater had been dark for two years.
The Falmouth Mall, long owned by Thomas J. Flatley, was sold in May 2007 to the Wilder Companies, a Boston-based retail real estate development company, along with O’Connor Capital Partners.