Restaurants Disappointed By Lack Of Business During Papal Weekend
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Small business owners, especially restaurants in Philadelphia, seem to have been impacted by the pope's visit -- and the impact hasn't been good.
Lisa Carroll, GM partner of Hickory Lane Bistro on Fairmount Avenue said pope weekend business has been pretty bad.
"For the prep that went into gearing up and buying extra freezers and getting deliveries on Thursday," Carroll said, "to have our business limited by all this security, that's been very disappointing."
Jamie Swanton of Tela's Market said they depend on local business.
"A lot of people from the neighborhood have fled," she said.
But what about the tourists?
"We were expecting a lot more," Swanton said, "a lot higher volume than we've been seeing."
Carroll attributed the low turnout to lack of information.
"The entire, taking the cars away on Monday, no one knew about that," she said, the routes that people can go, where the security checkpoints are."
And inaccessibility.
"We had a six-top cancel because they couldn't get through security, because the one man was on crutches," Carroll said. "That's a little too much!"
