Weather Forced Closings?

We’re going to get popped with this storm coming through the midwest. Should be about 12 inches by the end of tomorrow. Our town is awful about clearing roads and I’m concerned about my drivers spending the whole night stuck in snow drifts, at the same time, it should be a considerable bump in sales (or not). How have you guys handled this in the past?

My only experience with it was a blizzard on Christmas Eve of '09, since it didn’t really hit until later that night and we were closed on Christmas day, it really didn’t slow us down.

its basically your call quote long del times and shrink your delivery area down to just a 3 mile radius

i will be doing the delivery tommorow instead of my son

I am concerned about the weather as well. Wind chill is supposed to be minus 25 but very little snow. We will be open but I am not sure for how long. One small fender bender and there goes a weeks profit.

We’re getting ice now in Plainfield, IN. Both my boys are down there working the shop. We actually have people coming in to eat, and calling. Hell, they’re there, might as well pay the bills until the power lines go.

If I had people there other than family, I would have sent them home once it started.

Agreed.

I’m still on the fence about whether to open tomorrow.

I’m in Kansas City and they have already, essentially, shut down the city. FEMA declared an emergency and the governor sent out the national guard. So far? Rain. A very small amount of ice, but otherwise, just rain. Doesn’t matter as weather announcers vie for the most ridiculous snowfall predictions ever. I predict we will NOT get 19" of snow in Kansas City - EVER. Idiots.

It drives me crazy because they kill our business unnecessarily tonight and now tomorrow - even if nothing happens.

So what did I do? We’re having a Hurricane Party tomorrow night - with snow. I’m gonna deck the place up with luau decorations, put on some Buffett, fire up the blender, and make some rum runners. We live in a neighborhood so there’s plenty of people to walk up. I’ve already got a good 12-15 people that are coming up to hang out and watch the predicted storm-of-the-decade. The weather forecasters have given me lemons so I’m gonna try to make lemonade…

pc

  1. Nice

I’m still not seeing much down here except the sidewalks are slick, nothing near the apocalypse I was told was coming. Deliveries are even down for a Monday night. Think I’ll wait 'til morning to make a call.

High temperature here today was minus 24 with the wind chill factored in it feels like minus 38. I have been delivering all day with no complications. Of course this is just an ordinary day in northern Alberta. I haven’t put on the winter coat and boots yet.(they are for minus 40 or colder)

Weather is so unpredictable. It’s calling for 15cm of snow where I am, which isn’t too bad but turns ordinary traffic into terrible gridlock.
Social media like twitter and facebook are really useful for spreading the word on delays or closures if you’ve got a good following. I’ve noticed quite a few tweets already today from pizza shops that have closed, or are closing early due to weather conditions.

We tried to do business as usual tonight as the storm rolled in but hung it up around 7:30 after pulling in 3 small orders all afternoon and evening. My experience, as fresh as it is, with storms and even the hint of them around here is, folks hunker down. We’ve already called off our morning crew for tomorrow and will skip the lunch hour. I don’t expect much to be moving the way it’s looking out there right now. I’ve got 6’ drifts at my front door and even the City plows are going to hang it up for the night. We’ll make a decision around noon to open for supper or not…luckily I guess that this storm is during the first part of a week instead of a Saturday night like the previous 3 we’ve seen this winter. Dollar wise it won’t hurt us as bad as they did.

We didn’t end up opening yesterday, but the storm was not near as big as advertised. Based on the call logs, we probably would have done Saturday sales numbers. It’s disappointing to lose that, but I really don’t think I would have been able to deliver very effectively considering I got my truck stuck trying to park here this morning.

Our snowmageddan party was a smashing success. We only ended up with 12" or so of snow, but we still had a big crowd. Many of them walked up and everyone stayed for 5 or six hours. Our liquor ratio was a little off (50/50 where it’s normally 80/20) but that’s a good thing. Only complaint was that it was just my wife and I plus our Bar manager. We called a couple teenagers in to help but they were almost useless. My Bar manager had $265 in cc tips alone so I think she was happy!

I would definitely do this again. Everyone was really excited about it and they were ready to party.

Good times.

Patrick Cuezze
Next Door Pizza

We have had 22 FEET of snow so far this winter. Last night was -25 degrees, today was a record cold -40 degrees. Our schools are closed for weather for the first time since 1989. (Time before that was 1943). One of our delivery cars would not start…

But we are still delivering! Had a great night last night. Drivers said tips were really good. Thursday is expected to be -20. The schools will be open again. Hopefully the car that would not start will be good to go.

We ended up closed all day today as well, probably “could” have opened up especially for the dinner hours but truthfully it’s been a fantastic way to get a very rare day off and blame it on the storm!

We spent a few hours getting the area cleared up late this afternoon and we’ll be back at it again in the morning. I expect to be fairly busy with folks itching to get out of their holes.

i’m in colorado, 7500’ and it has been dead with the cold. i’d think there would be a lot of deliveries but people must be making chili or something. i have a four wheel drive ford pickup with a blade so snow isn’t a problem. lack of snow and cold seems to be. j