Spring Break
Economic squeeze
Establishments on Northgate find ways to cope with recession
By: Madiha Rizvi
Issue date: 3/11/09 Section: News
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Fat Burger, Jin's Asian Restaurant and Lippman's Music store are local entities occupying a stretch of University Drive across from the Texas A&M campus. They are facing profit losses, higher product prices and fewer lenders.
Students have been a constant profit source for these businesses, but not anymore, the business owners said.
"Our profits are down 20 percent in comparison to two years ago," said Fat Burger owner Moe Mooti. "We have an established business - that is why we are not going out of business. If we were new [in the restaurant business], we were going to be out of here."
Local businesses are faced with the national economic downturn and are under constant pressure to make use of student dollars.
Some students said it is hard to spare money to local businesses because they don't have time to dine in, and it is faster and cheaper to get fast food.
"Price wise, fast food restaurants are better, but quality wise restaurants are better," said Maryam Ansari, a junior biomedical science major. "You need time to dine in [with local restaurants]. With a drive-through, you can order and get it right there."
Mooti said Fat Burger has been in the family for 25 years, and they had to cope with the increasing labor costs by working harder themselves. They are dealing with the threat of losing workers because of constant competition with corporations.
"I can't afford to let go of workers," Mooti said. "The competition is so high with fast food. Also, the price of labor is higher because of minimum wage increases."
He said firing his employees was not in his dictionary because they would just go next door to find other jobs.
Some students said local businesses have to give incentives to attract students to spend their money. They said if the businesses acknowledged the recession in their advertisements, it would be beneficial for them.
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