An afternoon on the mall

This Memorial Day, putting this week’s paper together from an empty office — the rest of the City Pages team had taken the holiday off — I thought about previous Memorial Days I’d spent on the clock. 

Before I wrote for City Pages, I worked in fast food. At the restaurant where I formerly worked, holidays came with a drop in business so sharp that those of us working shifts that day would kill time by playing Hangman or doodling on the ceramic tile walls with dry-erase markers.

In a city the size of Wausau — a city with its share of chains — there’s no such thing as a universal day off. Somewhere, someone will be on the clock, and in their times of direst boredom, they’ll entertain themselves by any means necessary.

This was the premise I had in mind when I set off along Washington Street — what of it I could access amidst the road-closing construction for phase two of the city’s Mall Redevelopment Project. While sidewalks are still open and walkable, construction doesn’t make for the most scenic of holiday strolls. Surely, I thought, construction would make businesses already quiet due to the holiday even quieter.

I was wrong.

Amanda Boid will have worked at HOM Furniture for one year this summer. It was her first Memorial Day in the furniture industry.

Before that, she worked as a bartender.

“I grew up in Florida, so we were always busy [on Memorial Day],” she explained. “This is prime vacation time right now, so I mean, you were lucky if you could get in a restaurant without being on an hour wait, which I’m sure is different up in the Northwoods, because everybody goes camping.

“But as far as furniture?” Boid considered the question. “Seems to be a little crazy.”

With a handful of customers wandering the sales floor around 2 p.m., HOM Furniture wasn’t exactly bustling, but compared to recent traffic to the store, it might as well have been.

“When I first started, I would say I would get at least 10 ups a day,” Boid explained. “And then since April, it slowed down to maybe four, and today I’ve already gone through five.”

Between the surge in business and the burgers HOM’s manager was grilling for the staff as a Memorial Day treat, Boid was excited to have something more to do than read furniture tags around the store — her usual activity for slow days.

Across the street at Jimmy John’s, the pair on duty expressed similar sentiments. Within the first half an hour of opening, the store had surpassed last Memorial Day’s sandwich sales. The rush was so unexpected that the staff almost ran out of bread.

They chalked it up to a higher-than-average amount of large orders — orders of four sandwiches or more.

“Normally I’ve been, you know, pretty bored on Memorial Days, but time is flying past when you’re going, ‘Oh, it’s a lot busier than I thought it was gonna be,’” said one representative.

Usually, they kill time by chatting — about cars, a shared interest of theirs — or about their lives. The pair has been working together for about five years.

“It seems like this year… it’s busier downtown than it was last year,” the other representative explained. “It’s weird. I feel like this construction actually is bringing more people here, but then everybody thinks that it’s losing business. But every time we get asked, you know, ‘Is it affecting you guys?’ it’s like, no, it’s actually affecting us better, because all the construction people come in every other day. It’s very nice.”

As the interview came to a close, a group of teenagers entered the store: more customers. It seemed that construction wasn’t enough to keep pedestrians away, after all. 

Across the board, everyone was excited to see construction end, not only because of the impact on current business, but because they’re excited to see the results of the revamped area around the mall.

“We can’t wait for all of that to open up to see how business actually will be in the summertime,” said the first representative.

As for Boid? She can’t wait to be able to order food from across the street again.

“The access to, like, Jimmy John’s and everything downtown has been essentially cut off. I love Jimmy John’s, and I’ve tried to order from there,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Listen, we can’t cross the street. Like, do you really want us to get in our car and deliver it to you?’” Boid sighed. “‘No, it’s fine.’ So sad. It’s been a pain.”

Once the road opens up again, however, she anticipates that the store will see a lot more traffic.

“Not to say that it’s bad, but it is slow right now…” Boid said. “Like, I know one of our bedroom sets is all hickory wood. I know where the wood comes from. I don’t have to know that much.”