By Hania Malhas
Boston University News Service
BOSTON — After more than a year of restrictions on area businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some businesses are feeling the boost from the return of the Boston Marathon. The Boston Marathon is an icon of the city and a symbol of hope for all. It brings in customers to restaurants and helps these businesses blossom again.
According to Al Iudicane, general manager of Shake Shack on Newbury Street, the restaurant is poised to make between $20,000 and $25,000 on Marathon Day. During last year’s marathon, which was held virtually, the restaurant only cashed in about $12,000, Iudicane said.
“With COVID we definitely took a huge hit,” Iudicane said. “[However], in the last couple of months we have seen most of our business return.”
With the return of the marathon, restaurants like Shake Shack took advantage of its prime location on the day of the marathon and the days before.
“[During] Last year’s marathon, while it was done digitally, we still had a pretty busy day because so many people were here to watch other people finish and stuff like that. But we’re expecting to almost double from last year’s marathon,” Iudicane said.
While concerns arose about the marathon being in October rather than in April, Iudicane predicted “it would make it busier because it’s not as cold. Usually, it falls on a cold rainy day when it’s in [April]. But with it being in October and being an average of 70 every day, we expected it to be busier at this one just because the weather brings everyone out to Newbury.”
Marathon runners picked up their bibs in advance from the Hynes Convention Center. As a result of the expected crowd, Shake Shack turned off all deliveries for the weekend.
According to Iudicane, on a day where there are a lot of people on Newbury Street, they expect to serve around 12,000 people while turning off deliveries.
“So we average about $20,000-$25,000 on a Saturday and we’ll hit the higher end of that even without delivery,” Iudicane said.
Usually, Shake Shack would serve the same amount of people on a non-marathon Saturday, however that is with deliveries. “So on a day like today we’ll serve about 12,000 people between 11a.m. and 10p.m. at night. We’ll do about the same on a non-marathon Saturday but that is with delivery and stuff happening,” Iudicane said.
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Read also: Marathon boosts local economy (2019)
