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The Battalion
Business as usual
Page 3 • Thursday, June 26, 2003
Owners talk about how their businesses are affected by summertime crowds
By Daniel Chapman
THE BATTALION
As the temperature rises
on Northgate, so do worries
about finances for the multi
ple businesses across the
street from Texas A&M.
With the vast majority of the
student population in places
other than College Station,
the number of patrons dwin
dles. For the most part, busi
ness continues as usual, but
some businesses on
Northgate would not survive
if not for the influx of stu
dents in the fall. The steady
demand throughout most of
the year makes Northgate a
prime spot for a wide scope
of services.
With regards to the food
industry, Freebirds may have
made the most noticeable
changes with new summer
hours. Now closing at 8 p.m.
as opposed to the school-year
friendly 10:30 p.m., manager
Amanda McCoy deemed the
changes necessary.
“We are busy at lunch,
because I think that more of
the faculty come out since
the students are not here,”
McCoy said. “It is slower at
nights. We have been doing a
quarter of the business that
we would normally do at
nights so we decided to close
at 8 p.m. because there is no
sense in staying open till
10:30 p.m.”
However, the clientele at
the other locations is differ
ent than that of Northgate.
“The Rock Prairie loca
tion has many family
patrons, so they are virtually
unaffected and the same is
pretty much true for the
Basically if
someone comes
by and checks us
out, we consider
that good business. *
—Michael Weeks
employee of Northgate
Vintage
Texas Avenue location.
Things slow down for us, but
not to a degree that things are
horrible.”
Other businesses in town
besides the food industry are
affected by the lack of stu
dents, but business owners
said they make the best of it.
As far as cycling in
College Station goes, Cycles,
Inc. owner Robert Rose said
he knows from past experi
ence that the summer can be
a challenge for business, but
that he uses some of the
slower time to prepare for his
busiest time of the year.
“I really look forward to
back-to-school and late
August, which is our prime
time for sales,” Rose said.
“We use the summer to make
sure that we have all our
items in stock that people
will need. We sell more than
1,000 items and it is a good
time to go through and esti
mate how much we will need
for next year.”
While it is natural to
assume that with less students
there would be less business,
some businesses gain a dif
ferent crowd to fill in some of
the gaps. The Dixie Chicken
notices that fewer students
frequent its establishment
during the summer, but it
finds that in their absence,
there are different people to
fill in the gap. Jeremy
Sulton, the manager of the
Dixie Chicken, said he is
unfazed by the summer sea
son.
“Business slows down a
whole lot, but we don’t really
have to do that much to try to
balance it out because our
profits usually stay pretty
high all summer,” Sulton said.
“We get a lot of different peo
ple at night in the summer.
People that don’t generally
come out to the Chicken
sometimes come during the
summer possibly because it is
less crowded. This summer
has been much slower than
previous summers.”
As far as vintage clothing
goes, Northgate does not
skimp on quality. Michael
Weeks, an employee of
Northgate Vintage, said he
knows that any business is
good.
“We get a lot of business
in spurts,” Week said.
“Summers are a little slower,
but not by much. Basically if
someone comes by and
checks us out, we consider
that good business.”
It seems as though busi
ness on Northgate goes on as
usual during the summer. The
vast amount of business
brought by the students dur
ing the regular school year
seems to tide the businesses
over for the summer. Many
permanent College Station
residents take advantage of
the smaller crowds to enjoy
Northgate to the fullest.
While every business is
bound to feel the strain of
dramatically lower sales, no
one seems to be leaving
SETH FREEMAN • THE BATTALION
College students are obsessed with Harry Potter too
arn to conquer Ik
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LION
during the fall and springseues-
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40. POSTMASTER: Send addles
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niversity in the Division of Studeit
:d McDonald Building. Newsro*
://www.thebatt.com
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rising, call 845-0569, Adveifeing
ay through Friday. Fax: 845-26/8.
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0 per school year, $30 for ttiefal
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By Linda Shrieves
KRT CAMPUS
Kimberly Morales has a secret.
She loves Harry Potter.
Well, it’s not a huge secret, given the Harry
Potter key ring that dangles from her backpack as
she walks across the campus at Seminole
Community College. Or the Harry Potter-related
talks she has given in her public-speaking class.
But Morales’ open devotion to the fictional
teenage wizard may have peaked two years ago,
when she and a group of eight friends dressed as
their favorite characters from the Harry Potter
books and stood in line at an Oviedo theater to see
the first showing of Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone.
“I think we were the only college students at
the theater,” recalls Morales, who dressed as
Hermione, the boy wizard’s brainy friend. The
other moviegoers, primarily kids under 12 and
their parents, stared at the assortment of college
kids in black robes, capes - and one who’d
squeezed into a Harry Potter Halloween costume.
It’s not easy being a college student hooked on
Harry Potter.
Earlier generations had “Star Trek” and “Star
Wars” and even “The Rocky Horror Picture
Show” to ritualize. Or they stayed up late in the
night discussing “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy,
or the science-fiction classic “Dune.”
But the Harry Potter series - including the new
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,”
which goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. on June 21 - has
been marketed as a children’s book. And there’s
the rub.
“In college, it’s like a secret society,” says
Morales. “No one’s willing to admit, ‘I’m in love
with Harry Potter.’”
On some campuses, there’s even an undercur
rent of derision aimed at Harry’s college groupies.
The Potter fans - who sometimes call themselves
“Scarheads” in honor of the literary hero’s light
ning-bolt scar on his forehead - ignore the slights.
“I know some people look down on it because
it’s children’s fiction - or they see it as tacky pop
ular culture because of the way it’s been merchan
dised,” says 24-year-old Lauren Long, who
recently graduated from the University of Central
Florida in Orlando. “But the people who are real
ly into it don’t care.”
Campus to campus, Harry’s popularity varies.
At UCF, Long regularly spotted students wearing
Harry Potter backpacks and carrying Harry Potter
notebooks. And at Florida State University in
Tallahassee, 19-year-old freshman Morgan Myers
of Pensacola finds that students who are readers -
“and you’d be surprised by how many aren’t” -
are generally fans of Harry.
Though the students have aged, their passion
for Potter remains true. Indeed, when administra
tors at the Internet search engine Yahoo! began
studying all Internet searches for Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix, the upcoming book, they
discovered that 17 percent of the searches were
conducted by people ages 18-24.
Yet, for some college students - and many
adults - there’s a stigma attached to reading a chil
dren’s book.
To combat that, J.K. Rowling’s British publish
er has released adult versions of all the Harry
Potter books, with different cover illustrations
than the children’s book. And now Rowling’s
Canadian publisher, Raincoast Books, plans to
publish an adult hardcover version of “Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” The cover
will be dark with plain lettering, the equivalent of
a children’s novel in a brown paper wrapper.
“One of the phenomenons of this series is that
it does have a crossover audience and that it’s as
fun and as interesting for adults to read as it is for
kids,” says Tessa Vanderkop, Raincoast publicity
director. “And there are some adults who may be
uncomfortable being seen reading a children’s
book.”
Advertising may sell the books to younger
fans, but on college campuses, students learn
about Harry and his wizarding world by word of
mouth.
Morales, for instance, gave her circle of friends
an ultimatum: “Read these books or I’ll disown
you.”
That was three years ago. Since then, the 20-
year-old Morales has passed her Pottermania to
most of her friends.
Soon Raley began passing out copies of her
books to her friends. “I said, ‘After you’re done
with book four, you’re going to be screaming for
book five.’”
And now, with the release of the fifth book,
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,”
Raley and Morales and their friends stood in line
with the 12-and-under set at an Oviedo bookstore
to get their copies.
Meanwhile, across town, Kristin Alvarado, 24,
was busy entertaining 80 pint-sized Harry Potter
fans at the downtown Orlando library.
Alvarado, now a graduate student at FSU, dis
covered the magical world of Hogwarts four years
ago, when she received a package from her
younger brother. Inside she found the first three
books in the planned seven-book series, along
with a note: “You’ve gotta read these.”
Alvarado dug in. Though she’d never bothered
to pick up a Harry Potter book before, suddenly
she couldn’t put them down.
“They were so good, it didn’t even matter to
me that they were kids’ books,” Alvarado says.
“There’s so much in there that’s universal and the
issues that Harry deals with transcend age limits.”
So at 12:01 a.m., Alvarado was not bar-hop
ping, like many college-age friends. She was at
the library, checking out copies of the fifth book to
kids and helping them try on her own “sorting
hat.”
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