Sugar Shack thanks the Redskins……not
Leigh Street is closed and business is suffering
Update #1 — July 24, 2014; 2:33 PM
Redskins/RVA just stopped our manager from riding a bike down Leigh street to come to work… her bike. How's that for community? @RTDNEWS
— Sugar Shack Donuts (@rvadonuts) July 24, 2014
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Original — July 24, 2014
The city closed Leigh st for the Redskins, effectively killing our business today. Thanks Redskins for helping local business! @redskins
— Sugar Shack Donuts (@rvadonuts) July 24, 2014
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Richard Hayes
When Richard isn’t rounding up neighborhood news, he’s likely watching soccer or chasing down the latest and greatest craft beer.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
If Leigh St. is closed, how can the Redskins be blamed? This blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the city.
For $2500, I’m sure the city and the Redskins would have no problem letting Sugar Shack operate normally.
Where is it closed? I thought Leigh’s supposed to be closed between Boulevard and Hermitage, like last year? If it’s closed all the way to Lombardy I can understand them being upset, but if they’re mad that a street is closed 1/2 mile from their business, that seems a little insane.
Perhaps Sugar Shack should have been proactive and tried to get permission to set up a stand by the practice facility. The extra sales and promotion of brand awareness would likely have resulted in a huge windfall for the business.
love how the first 3 comments are not sympathetic in the first bit. must be some dumb football fans.
I think its because OF the deadskins that the street is closed. thus the shop not being open for business. And apparently the city didn’t let businesses know. Since they already have their money…
Snarky Redskins tweets won’t help business either. Take it up with the city.
It’s not the team’s fault that Leigh Street is closed. It’s the city’s. Complaining to the NFL won’t reopen the road. Channel the frustration towards getting the problem solved instead of venting on social media.
Daww well wasn’t that cute of them? How unfortunate they felt the need to take a foray into the resentful/hateful political realm. I’d been talking them up recently but they’ve just lost a potential customer. Too many other donut shops out there to deal with their silliness. Nobody can beat Mrs. Yoder’s anyways ;)
How can you blame the redskins I am not even a fan but it is great for richmind to have them hear your doughnut business is just giving the community diabetes and to post it to twitter I mean really get a life you people make a ton a money already you have 2 locations grow up I wont be coming back anytime soon
Hahahahaa! Can’t you just see Jeff E. jerking his chin and sniffing the air while he smugly yanks away the $3 he was “potentially” going to spend on a donut. Gosh, I hope Sugar Shack will make it without him.
Charles, Sugar Shack also sells punctuation. Perhaps they’d give you a bulk discount?
Since they had a little more downtime they could of used there time a little wiser than resorting to social media. Placing someone up the street with a sign mentioning USA today ranked top ten doughnut-this way might have steered a nice crowd of people who might not have done their research on the city before driving down.
This is the slowest time of the year for restaurants and other business and there are tens of thousands of people, major news outlets, and national figures blocks away- and you have the access to that if you just be creative.
Bunch of crybabies…..waaaaaaaaaaah!
Ben, hopefully they decide to get off their pity pot and do something productive like that. Certainly seems like a great idea to me.
Karen, it is a little funny isn’t it? Almost as funny as people who hate baseball boycotting the Flying Squirrels… but not quite.
Resorting to social networks is the way to stir the pot. They are made up of the people who are supposed to check the function of their government. I believe they are called citizens. Go hold a sign on the corner. Really man, come on? It is a big deal if the road is closed a half mile from the shop. The wasteland spectators coming to see the skins don’t help the city economy when they’re done they all stop at Mcdonalds and head home. People stop to get donuts on their way to work, time is limited, and a detour even if just a half a mile is a big deal. Sugar Shack probably does the bulk of their business in 3 hours every morning. Missing an hour let a lone a whole day for a small restaurant can make or break the bank account. Not to mention how would opening new stores imply that there is excess money available. That cost money, a lot. Way to support the dog and pony show over members of your community people. Also, I love football played in college myself. This has nothing to do with football, but the Redskins organization and our degenerate city government is to blame.
i would hate to have sugar shack as an ex… #stayclassy
A restaurant typically works on a very small margin, and losing a day’s business is a big deal. Sugar Shack is looking at losing 3 weeks. If someone has a business that relies on walk-in customers and the city has chosen to restrict traffic to their business, they have every right to be upset and should have some compensation from the city.
Oh, I think Sugar Shack has a point about City government, the lack of respect for small businesses, and the corporate toadying that’s been going on.
And yes, the Squirrels boycott will continue as long as the flawed Shockoe stadium proposal is still being pushed.
http://www.change.org/petitions/mayor-dwight-jones-we-are-boycotting-flying-squirrels-shockoe-stadium-proposal
i don’t think anyone is disagreeing with their right to be upset–well maybe some. the way sugar shack went about “issuing” their complaint was immature and kind of a turn off
Didn’t realize they were having issues until I read this, so I called right away and tried to place 4 (large) delivery orders over the next few weeks for my office – they said they wouldn’t deliver. Even with the promise of a hefty tip!
Sometimes owners of businesses will deliver for us since we’ll place a number of orders at a time and pay up front, but they said that wouldn’t happen either. I get that delivery isn’t the easiest, but I had hoped to help a little more than I could by just visiting and getting 1 donut for myself.
Surprised by all the haters here. They have every right to be mad, and every right to post it on Twitter. I support their anger.
A few things–this is an event that has been known about for ages now. It’s not like the city dropped this on SS the day before. Judging by their gripe first first thing in the morning on the first day, they were well prepared to b**** about it, so why not come up with something creative. Two- yesterday’s weather was perfectly crappy. There weren’t a whole heck of a lot of people out and about anywhere yesterday morning/afternoon as I drove around downtown. Is that not a possible contributing factor to a downturn in business? I mean since it was the first day of camp, it’s not like SS has statistics to say that the road closure over the course of this time period killed their business. Three–Given the fact that this is a well-publicized event and knowing that there would be road closures (see my first point), why did SS not sign up to be one of the local food trucks serving up yumminess on Leigh St? Reference this story on WRIC: http://www.wric.com/story/26094373/local-food-trucks-cook-up-redskins-themed-menu-for-training-camp
Four: the bike-riding manager wasn’t allowed to ride a bike down Leigh St because it is closed to vehicular traffic. A bicycle is a vehicle, albeit not a motorized one. It’s for safety reasons, not to inconvenience the small business owners. Since bicyclists are supposed to obey the same rules of the road as motorists (note I said supposed to since most rarely do), why would they be exempt from this? Quit your whining about not being able to ride your bike during a well-advertised road closure.
Five: Training camp brings in a lot of people and money to the city. Maybe they’re not the kind to stop at SS for a donut (though they probably would be if it were a bit more well-known outside the city) and would rather stop at McD’s (yuck), but the taxes on their food still go to the city. Gasoline taxes go to the city and the state. Sales tax goes to the state. In January, a report was released that stated having training camp in RVA made a $10.5 million economic impact on Richmond, surpassing the expectation the mayor had when pitching the idea to bring them here. One 2.5 week time frame generated $10.5 million. We can expect similar results this year. Is that not well-worth the inconvenience of a road closure half a mile away?
They have every right to post on THEIR OWN Twitter or Facebook account about losing business. This clearly has nothing to do with preference of a team, and everything to do with the Redskins and the city screwing over the little guy. And even two days later the very restaurants that blocked Sugar Shack are complaining… http://m.timesdispatch.com/redskins-xtra/crowds-swell-on-day-of-redskins-training-camp/article_938729b1-20a6-56c1-a5ae-82e824ca461e.html?mode=jqm
I wonder how many of those commenting are small business owners operating in the city? Right. Thought so.
I strongly question Redskins camp economic impact numbers. The original estimate was for the economic impact for the city. The final number was for the economic impact for the region. That discrepancy was widely reported in the press.
I can’t figure out how a street closure near Redskin’s Camp keeps customers from being able to access Sugar Shack at Lombardy and Leigh. Surely those who would access Sugar Shack by turning off of Broad onto Leigh street would be smart enough to figure out an alternate route. Or better yet, maybe Sugar Shack should tweet alternate directions during training camp. There are plenty of ways to get there don’t they realize that? Next they’ll complain that they can’t figure out how to get supplies delivered to their location.
Check out their entire twitter feed… totally unprofessional. The owner is an entitled crybaby.
Cwest- leave it to Arby’s to use none other than a sign and some creativity to garner national attention, please tell me the unjust reason sugar shack could not have done the same.