At the beginning of this year’s basketball season, many local businesses around the University of Oregon campus reaped the rewards of big crowds coming through town. By the end of March, these same businesses felt the effects of the global COVID-19 outbreak.
Governor Kate Brown’s order for all ‘non-essential’ businesses to close went into effect on March 23. Since then, some of UO’s local hotspots have been adapting to quarantine life and social distancing guidelines.
Track Town Pizza, a staple of campus joints, has remained open and continues to serve the community. Tim Hill, co-owner of Track Town Pizza, was hurt thinking about what could have been this year if things had not escalated to the degree they are now.
“Last year we broke a sales record around this time,” Hill said. “Then, this January, we broke that sales record, only for it to be broken again in February. We were on track to break our yearly sales record.”
Hill said that the restaurant had anticipated things like the first two games of the NCAA tournament and the Olympic Trials that were set to take place in the summer. Both events were postponed this year. Now, there is little-to-no chance that Track Town will break its yearly sales record.
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Employees of the restaurant have also felt the effect. Hill said that Track Town typically pre-hires in anticipation of big sports seasons like basketball and football. Now, 13 part-time workers have been temporarily furloughed.
“They’ve been promised a position back here when things go back to normal,” Hill said. “None have filed for unemployment so far. Most were part-time workers that lived at home, like high school students.”
According to Hill, three of his employees have asked not to work at this time. In total, 24 employees still work at Track Town, and have not taken any pay cuts due to the current situation.
For now, Track Town only does curb-side pickup and delivery. It’s also closing at 10 p.m. each night, two hours earlier than normal, due to the fact that many of the nightly activities that brought late-night customers are no longer happening.
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Hirons is another local favorite that has felt the swing in business from the events these past months. According to Hirons’ vice-president, Steve Hirons, the women’s basketball games kept bringing in more and more people. This led to some good months for Hirons’ sales.
“Our sales are down 80% between both stores,” the vice president said, referring to the locations east of campus near Market of Choice and west of campus near Safeway. “We’ve also seen an uptick in theft between both stores, so it’s been a tough few weeks.”
He has had to lay off 8-10 part-time workers while another 10 or so student workers have gone home. Between both stores, there are now about 80 workers total.
Hirons is considered an essential business due to the pharmacy in the store. Steve Hirons said he has been attempting to promote social distancing through signage and new sanitary rules around the store. He also talked about the struggles of selling masks at this time.
“Sellers are trying to sell at an exorbitant amount,” Hirons said. “For me to put those masks on my shelf at the mark-up price would be egregious.”
Both Hirons and Track Town have refused to cut pay for their workers, citing the risks and hard work that each individual goes through when working during this time.
This story was updated Monday morning to correct a transcription error in a quote. The word is “exorbitant,” not “absorbent.” Sometimes when you’re in an interview, you’re so busy trying to soak it all in, the littlest things squeeze by you — but we’ll be sure to mop it up before publishing next time.
