News Article Teaser

I have decided to focus my news article on the recent struggles of our nations economy. More specifically, the purpose of my article is to investigate and find answers to the following questions: Are we currently in a recession? How is this effecting our local businesses? Do these businesses feel enough is being done to ensure their survival?

The reason why I am interested in doing this article is because my family owns an Italian restaurant and this issue is effecting us first hand.

Our restaurant is located in a strip mall with several other businesses. In addition to our restaurant there is also a hair salon, a gas station, a fitness place, a bank, karate, a coffee shop, a liquor store, and a gas station. Over the past year our mall has seen two store closings with the loss of a dry cleaners and a video games store.

To help answer the questions I noted above I have begun speaking with the owners of these businesses to see how the recent economic struggles have effected their businesses.

So far I have found out the following with regards to the businesses in our strip mall:

Since the opening of our restaurant we have seen a slow increase in revenue each year since we opened doors in February of 2004. But over the last 3 months our business has seen around a 50% decrease in normal revenue for those months.

Generally by this time of year we have around 35-40 banquets for sports teams booked for the months of March and April. So far this year we have 10.

Our food venders report much of the same for the other restaurants they deal with.

I understand the purpose of these articles are to get us experience in reporting stories so thats why I will not include any quotes or much more information from our family restaurant. I plan to use this only to help strengthen my article if need be.

The karate place next to us has told me they are down about 40-50% of the students they normally have. Bill, the owner, has told me "All of the karate places in our chain are experiencing this, normally we have around double the studens that we have coming in now.

The liquor store since the holidays has seen their sales drop off completely. Sean, the owner, has told me "lately there are a lot of days when we only get a few customers here and there, its really slow."

The salon has had a drop in revenue as well, and lately has seen fewer repeat customers then normal. The owner Katie is a good friend of my dads and said she will be happy to speak with me more in depth about this and the questions above. I will have this to include in my article in the near future.

I know that businesses generally expect to be slower this time of year. But I have heard from each of these owners on plenty of occasions that they have never seen anything like this before.

Within the next few days I will be speaking with bank, the gas station, and the fitness place. I will also be asking these business owners their opinions on the topic of, is enough being done to help? Specifically, if they feel the new government stimulus checks will help their businesses.

I have also noticed recently in the Star Tribune, and on the news as well, information about other larger businesses. Things such as employee cuts and revenue decreases. I might look into this information further as well to see if it can add to my article.