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City Hosting a Bicycle Race and Cutting Off access to 80% of Customers

Daddio

Daddio

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Staff member
The city is hosting the Tour of Alberta and will be closing the road in front of my Store from 4PM to 8PM. In addition to this closure they are closing the main arterial road that it connects to. The closure is on Wednesday September 2nd.

The question is do I just close that day and take the loss or do I try to make things work? I am leaning toward closing.

I asked the city to help out by allowing my marked delivery vehicle to at least be allowed to cross the road when there were no racers but they turned that idea down. Their alternative is to have a reserved parking spot across the road and have the delivery driver walk the deliveries across the road. This walk is about 3 minutes without accounting for carrying the delivery or waiting for a break in the race traffic. On a side note my drivers are (legal) contract drivers and are paid a flat rate per order.

Another alternative they proposed was to drive the 6 mile detour to get to the rest of the city.
 
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If there will be no spectator traffic, closed. I would not want a story in the paper the next day about how an employee and racer got into a accident (worst case scenario).
 
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i would lean towards closing too. If one of your guys gets taken out by a cyclist going 25 mph you’ll wish you had closed.
 
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The start and finish point are a mile and a half away. The turn around point is 5 miles away. I see no chance of any real foot traffic in my area.
 
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Daddio said:
The city is hosting the Tour of Alberta and will be closing the road in front of my Store from 4PM to 8PM. In addition to this closure they are closing the main arterial road that it connects to. The closure is on Wednesday September 2nd.

The question is do I just close that day and take the loss or do I try to make things work? I am leaning toward closing.

I asked the city to help out by allowing my marked delivery vehicle to at least be allowed to cross the road when there were no racers but they turned that idea down. Their alternative is to have a reserved parking spot across the road and have the delivery driver walk the deliveries across the road. This walk is about 3 minutes without accounting for carrying the delivery or waiting for a break in the race traffic. On a side note my drivers are (legal) contract drivers and are paid a flat rate per order.

Another alternative they proposed was to drive the 6 mile detour to get to the rest of the city.
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I would open. Why give your customers the chance to try your competition. I would stage the drivers in the lot across the street and bring in an extra inside employee or two to shuttle the deliveries to the drivers. Maybe even have a staging area there for carry out customers and shuttle the pizzas out to them. Even if the extra labor keeps you from making a profit for the day, you will retain your customers. Of course, I am open 365 days/year for this same reason.
 
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I have made the decision to close for the day. The logistics of trying to get contract drivers around the road closures and detours coupled with the extra time to get deliveries to the customers is a recipe for unhappy customers. I limit my delivery area to 10 minutes from the store because beyond that customers tend to be unhappy with the temperature of the food. By adding a 4 minute walk across the road plus a possible long wait for traffic before being allowed to cross puts the delivery way passed the optimum time.
 
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Im pretty sure your customers will understand why you are closed for the day especially if you tell them ahead of time that you will be closed and why. But like royster said it might be a good idea to take a couple of your staff to where all the people will be and maybe hand out some fliers or menus or maybe even some samples for a few hours.
 
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Georgiascp said:
Im pretty sure your customers will understand why you are closed for the day especially if you tell them ahead of time that you will be closed and why. But like royster said it might be a good idea to take a couple of your staff to where all the people will be and maybe hand out some fliers or menus or maybe even some samples for a few hours.
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Samples and flyers are out of the question due to city bylaws. Magnets are iffy in this situation.
 
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I just heard Ryder Hesjedal is racing…Going to be a great event…Hopefully you can come up with a way to gain some advantage out of it…
 
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I know what its like to suffer through slow days. I would have recommended closing down as well. Not only could it be a risk for the riders and your drivers, I think anyone who wanted to order from your restaurant would understand that it wouldn’t be feasible to actually stay open, being locked in as much as you will be.
 
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How about a special offer BEFORE the race promoting the race and encouraging people to get their orders in before you are having to shut down. Or even a carry-out special for people to pick up something before they go and watch the race.
 
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