CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The last weekend of a shortened spring break; there was beautiful weather, and more and more people getting vaccinated. All of that may have led to a record-breaking weekend for downtown businesses and restaurants.
“Sales were up 82 percent for me and I think a lot of it was because of just the weather,” said Cierra Riley Owner of Commons on Shatzell Street, a gift shop that opened last month.
Riley believes the governor lifting restrictions led to people getting outside.
“I personally hope that it means a lot more people are getting vaccinated and we're moving closer toward heard immunity,” said Riley.
It wasn't just busy at shops and markets either.
“It has been absolutely unbelievable. We were ready and we thought we might have a busy spring break, but we are now benchmarking against 2019 which was a record year for us,” said Richard Lomax, the President of Water Street Restaurants.
Lomax says they're already 10 to 15 percent ahead of this time 2 years ago. Lomax says his three restaurants had hour long wait times and were told other restaurants had even longer lines.
“We were talking and almost like bargaining with guests like well it's going to be about an hour wait,” said Lomax. “You know are you willing to stay, trying to guide them to other restaurants in the area and like well that other restaurant is an hour and a half so we're going to be with you all.”
Alyssa Barrera-Mason, the Executive Director of the Downtown Management District says early numbers are amazing for this past weekend.
“We've had reports of anywhere from an 82 percent increase to a 250 percent increase,” said Barrera-Mason.
Barrera-Mason says they only lost a few businesses to the pandemic, but most were able to scale back to survive. She says they were expecting a higher turnout of customers.
“It's definitely our regular spring break bump but I think this year there's just so much pent up demand, it's stronger than it's ever been before,” said Barrera-Mason.
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
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