San Juan Bautista business owners are hoping their
”
Old-Fashioned Christmas
”
will give the Mission City’s economy a boost this year, and are
already reporting that sales have generally been up over the
weekend.
San Juan Bautista business owners are hoping their “Old-Fashioned Christmas” will give the Mission City’s economy a boost this year, and are already reporting that sales have generally been up over the weekend.
“San Juan has a lot to offer,” said Denise Cauthen-Wright, executive director of the San Juan Bautista Chamber of Commerce. “We just need to make sure other people know about it.”
Early in the summer, city officials, business owners and volunteers started planning to build on beloved San Juan Bautista holiday traditions and promote them to bring both local and tourist shoppers – and their money – downtown for the Christmas season.
“San Juan is always special around Christmas,” said Carolyn Roe-Gargiulo, a chamber of commerce board member and owner of the County Bounty gift shop. She is also the chamber’s chairwoman for holiday events. “It’s beautiful, and events like the (El Teatro Campesino) Christmas play always bring us lots of customers.”
Over the weekend San Juan celebrated the season with its first-ever “Holiday in Lights” parade, a smaller answer to Hollister’s annual “Lights On” parade.
“I was thrilled, the city manager was thrilled, everyone I talked to loved it,” Cauthen-Wright said. “We had 24 entries, lots of people came out, for our first year it was great.”
The parade coincided with San Juan’s merchant open-house; businesses stayed open later, served snacks, offered special sales and chatted with shoppers.
“A lot of people are saying they did good business, but I also saw a lot of what happens in Hollister,” Cauthen-Wright said. “Maybe they didn’t have money with them, but people were saying, ‘Oh wow, this is a cute shop. I never knew it was here. I have to come back later.’ And that’s also really important.”
Merchants are hopeful that other seasonal events – carolers, a holiday bonfire, live nativity, and annual music and theater performances – will continue to bring in shoppers until Christmas.
“Summer is usually the busiest time of the year, when all the tourists come for the festivals,” said Diana Perazzo, who owns Bluebird Antiques and Collectibles. “But Christmas is becoming more important.”
Like their Hollister counterparts, San Juan businesses are attempting to educate locals as to the importance of shopping within their own community. Today dozens of businesses will be putting up “Buy Local” posters in their storefront windows.
“My husband likes to joke that we should put up a sign saying ‘San Juan shops are not museums,'” Roe-Gargiulo said. “Some people will come through the shops, but they don’t buy anything. And then you drive downtown and see ‘for sale’ signs in all the windows.”
Cauthen-Wright suggested that many residents may agree with the “shop local” mantra in theory, but still shop at big-box retailers simply because they see them every day or know they can find everything they need at once.
“If you’re not familiar with the shops, you might not know where to look, or maybe you think it will be more expensive to shop in little boutiques, but that usually isn’t the case,” she said. “If you shop here the tip you give to the waitress at Doña Esther’s goes to help buy her groceries at Windmill Market and it creates a domino effect that’s good for the community.”
Business owners and city leaders are confidant that San Juan’s small-town charm will win over shoppers. Cauthen-Wright said she met a couple from Pittsburgh, Calif., who were so impressed with an episode of “Backroads” featuring San Juan from years ago that when they heard about this year’s parade, they booked a local hotel and spent the entire weekend shopping in the Mission City.
“We’re not the Great Mall and we’re not the outlets in Gilroy,” she said. “And that’s what a lot of people are looking for – a small-town Christmas.”
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected].
