Valley businesses may struggle as students leave
Local businesses, including the Cache Valley Fun Park, Pizza Pie Cafe and Carl’s Jr. will feel the impact of the decreased student body this summer semester.
John D. Mortensen, assistant vice president for Enrollment Services and Retention, said as of Monday morning 2,221 undergraduate students and 364 graduate students were enrolled at USU for summer semester.
That number is a stark contrast to the 13,820 undergraduate and 1,632 graduate students enrolled for the 2013 spring semester.
“Decrease of student body always has an effect on any business in Logan because Logan is mostly students,” said Britteny Fogg, a Carl’s Jr. shift leader at the 1400 North location.
As a result of the decreased student body, the Fun Park will be dropping their Monday night swing dance session.
“Every summer there is an immediate decrease in business,” said Gary Wiser, Cache Valley Fun Park general manager. “During the summer, we drop the swing dance nights to just on Wednesdays because there is not enough student body to support the Monday sessions.”
Likewise, Pizza Pie Cafe will drop Thursday Karaoke nights.
“We don’t do that during the summer time,” said Oliver Meservy, Pizza Pie Cafe general manager. “There’s just not enough student base. Because Logan’s a family community, a lot of people, Thursday night they don’t want to have their kids up that late, even if it is summer time.”
Pizza Pie Cafe is going to be faced with staff and schedule changes at the end of spring semester.
“We cut back hours in the summer,” Meservy said. “We’re not open as long during the week. We close at 10 p.m. during the school year but when school is out, even, you know, elementary and high school’s out, we close at 9 p.m. during the week and 10 p.m. on the weekends. So there’s an hour less that we’re open each week, and so most of the time students that work for us tend to go home too. So we lose about a third of our staff, so we kind of plan ahead for it and reschedule people accordingly to whoever is leaving.”
The Fun Park, whose employees are 95 percent students, is also predicting changes in their staff. Wiser projects the Fun Park will lose about half of their staff at the end of spring semester.
“We have a smaller staff,” Wiser said. “We will ramp it up in the fall. It’s a combination of USU students coming back to town and the weather getting bad that makes us have to ramp it up.”
The Carl’s Jr. on 1400 North will make changes in staff at the end of spring semester.
“A lot of our night staff is students, because we are slower we can handle a smaller staff,” Fogg said.
However, Fogg said the restaurant won’t be as slow as previous years.
“We are doing a lot of hiring right now, not only because it’s summer but also our sale volume has increased a lot,” Fogg said. “So yeah, if anyone needs a summer job, just let us know.”
Carl’s Jr. is going to be increasing their advertising, but Fogg said they are already a family restaurant, so she believes families will continue to be stable customers through the summer.
“We try to make that as obvious as possible,” Fogg said. “We love the college students. They do a lot for sales, but we do focus a lot on families.”
The restaurant will put emphasis on the lunch hour during the summer.
“One of the biggest things is our lunch rush,” Fogg said. “We try to cater to companies for the lunch rush, just people going on their lunch break and things like that.”
Pizza Pie Cafe is extending their advertisement to reach people outside of the student body, especially summer-only residents.
Meservy is confident the students staying in Logan will still be frequent customers.
“I feel like students always are looking for a cheap meal,” Meservy said. “Pizza Pie Cafe is great for students looking for something to do. I think we are really blessed in Logan to have so many outdoor activities close by, like water skiing and things like that, but students don’t always have time to plan those kinds of activities, so Pizza Pie Cafe is a great place for students to come and hang out.”
The Fun Park is also changing advertising during the summer to reach groups outside of the student body.
Part of this advertisement includes social networking and a youth summer camp. The youth summer camp will start in June and will be available to grades kindergarten through seventh. It will cost between $100 and $150 and there will be things like bowling classes, laser tag tournaments, skating classes, arts and crafts and roller hockey tournaments.
Wiser said the hope for the youth summer camp will be to utilize the fun park when it is usually closed to get additional business into the facility.
Wiser said despite the decrease in student body, he is confident the Fun Park will still have successful business.
“It’s the only one here in the area, and it’s just affordable and fun for families,” Wiser said. “It’s a fun atmosphere.”
– jerawood@aggiemail.usu.edu