Throughout the two-week-long United Auto Workers Local 2300 strike — which ended on September 2 — many students turned to Collegetown as an alternative meal source amid limited dining operations on campus.
In turn, Collegetown restaurants reported a spike in sales.
“I don’t normally go [out to eat]. I think I only ate out like three times total last year,” said Ally Guo ’27. “There just wasn’t enough choice of food and the boxed lunches were not good.”
Chris Gardner, the general manager for Wings Over Ithaca, said that throughout August, the restaurant approached “record sales” as students looked for off-campus dining options during the strike.
“It’s a tough time but it was something that we embraced and we did the best we could because we had Cornell students in here like crazy,” Gardner said. “So it was really good for the business.”
Some Collegetown restaurants had to quickly adapt to accommodate increased demand.
BiBiBowl Asian Grill Manager Heidi Cheung said that not knowing how long the strike would last made it difficult to determine effective adjustments for the eatery.
“We definitely either had to extend hours or tried to hire on another person, but because [of] the [uncertainty around the] strike, we weren’t 100 percent sure [whether to fully commit to it],” Cheung said. “It was always [on] a temporary hold, something we were prepared for.”
Cheung also explained that “staying on top of inventory” was difficult for the restaurant because it was not expecting the sharp increases in sales.
“For inventory, because of the surplus in it, even for the providers, it wasn’t something expected so soon,” Cheung said. “So some things we had to outsource from other places. But for the most part, I think they did a pretty good job of trying to stay on top of it.”
Gardner said that the strike “changed the way [they] had to do a whole lot of things” due to unforeseen traffic at Wings Over Ithaca.
“It’s become all of a sudden a seven-day week job,” Gardner said. “But when the strike ended we were able to see a little bit of more relief as the kids were able to go back to the dining halls a little bit more.”
When the strike ended, some Collegetown restaurants experienced a drop in traffic as dining halls reopened to full capacity.
Gardner said that he remains optimistic about the lasting impact of the surge as his business comes back to its typical level.
“I like to think that we put out a pretty good product over that time and we made some new Wings Over fans,” Gardner said.