Despite hopes for a booming business day due to the debate, Mill Avenue and University Drive restaurant and retail owners said they did not see the revenue they hoped for.
"It was a pretty good week up until yesterday," said Downtown Tempe executive director Rod Keeling. "I would say lunch was off as much as 75 percent."
Keeling added that part of the problem was that the 90,000 people who work within two miles of Mill Avenue were afraid that they could not drive to that area.
Downtown Tempe, a non-profit organization that works with the city, typically sees downtown businesses serve approximately 15,000 lunches a day and only served about 2,000 on Wednesday, Keeling said.
Sales at Pita Pit, located at 120 E. University Drive, were not greatly affected yesterday, according to manager Chris Kasych.
He said deliveries were down due to increased traffic.
David Cheren, owner of Dave's Dog House at 130 E. University Drive, also said he did not have a busy day and actually had more business the day before the debate.
"I think [businesses] were more affected on Mill," he said.
Mill Avenue business owners said they did not do as well as they expected.
"We were very, very slow," said George Hodgkins, general manager at Borders Books, Music and Cafe, 699 S. Mill Ave.
"Everyone was somewhere else; it wasn't surprising," he said. "It was disappointing, but not surprising."
Borders only did about half of the business they typically do on a Wednesday, Hodgkins said.
"Before 2 p.m. the crowd was very light," Keeling said. "After 2 p.m. things started picking up."
Ruby Tuesday, at the intersection of University Drive and Mill Avenue, and Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant, at the intersection of 4th Street and Mill Avenue, were slow during the day but got busy later that night, their managers said.
"During the day we were slow," said Ruby Tuesday general manager Shawn Lay, "[But] we had a great showing around 8 p.m., right after the debate."
Gordon Biersch became busy following the debate, but attributed the majority of the night's business to Sen. John Kerry's rally at Tempe Beach Park, said general manager Cheryl Johnson.
"We made up for the day," Johnson said. "This was one of the slowest days we have had in a long time."
One day of lower sales is worth the media coverage that Tempe was able to get during the day of the debate, Keeling said.
"The big pay off is the long-term effects of media coverage," Keeling said. "The people who worked on this from ASU did a tremendous job. This was the best media exposure Tempe ever had."
Reach the reporter at katherine.ruark@asu.edu.
