Making Up for the Economic Doldrums - September 7, 2003
By J.D. Samuelson

John Ryan, Jr. paused midsentence to remove his sunglasses, revealing the deep, freckled folds that have settled in around his eyes during his 23 years of lifeguarding on the Town of East Hampton's white sand beaches. Overhead, thick rolls of low, dark clouds began scattering large raindrops among the few swimmers still packing their chairs, coolers and towels before walking to their cars.

The ice cream truck had headed home early, leaving the parking lot of Indian Wells Beach more than half empty. It was an inauspicious start to the long Labor Day weekend that closed a summer of anything but glorious beach days.

The sun seekers had come out in vain -- again. "They were just trying to get the summer they didn't get in July," Mr. Ryan said.

On the East End, where business owners say they make two-thirds of their annual income during the summer months, the weather is a critical concern. Not that rain is necessarily a bad thing.

Common wisdom in the Hamptons has it that a good afternoon shower, or even its shadow, can be a boon for retailers and restaurateurs, forcing would-be sun worshipers to abandon hard-won parking spaces at the beach in the hopes of finding one in town. When it rains, the thinking goes, lunch, a movie or browsing for clothes or jewelry takes weekenders' minds off the weather and money out of their pockets.

But if anything, the summer of 2003 may have been too much of a good thing with so much rain, at least early on, that many people decided to stay away altogether.

"You could call this the summer that almost wasn't," said Lili Adams, the owner of the Ditch Witch, a small burrito and coffee stand overlooking Ditch Plains Beach in Montauk. After 10 years of serving a steady stream of surfers and the out-of-towners who rediscovered the beach a few years ago, Ms. Adams noticed something palpably different about this summer. Sure, there was the rain -- more than twice the usual rainfall in June and slightly above average in July -- but there was also a seemingly inexhaustible supply of damp and cloudy days.

Heading into August, Ms. Adams knew that sales were down over previous years, perhaps by as much as 20 percent. It was only in the last month, when temperatures finally peaked in the 90's and the sun stayed out for days at time, that she was able to make up for what she called the "slow start."

Not far down the road at the Clam Bar in Napeague, Leigh Goodstein had just shucked a dozen oysters before handing them to a waiter and then dropping a basketful of clams into the deep fryer. "It has definitely been a crazy summer," said Ms. Goodstein, the restaurant's manager. "It felt like it didn't even start until July Fourth weekend, which makes it seem strange that it is already over. But everyone keeps saying it will be a good fall, and we'll make it up."

The restaurant has a loyal following, among both year-round residents and summer visitors, but because all its seating is outside, it is particularly at the mercy of the elements. Ms. Goodstein agreed that August had given business a big boost, but still, it has not been easy stocking the coolers with the right amount of fresh fish without knowing "which way the weather is going to go, or whether there will be power," she said.

After the harshest winter to hit the Northeast in a decade or so, Ms. Goodstein said she had been hopeful, if not optimistic, as she waited for a spring that never really came. Even well into June, nighttime temperatures occasionally fell to the mid-40's.

Spring's slow advance forced landscapers, plumbers and interior designers to push back their schedules as second-home owners put off opening their houses and pools. Day-trippers looking for antiques and the perfect summer rental postponed their trips east.

Business owners who looked ahead at the calendar had already noted that 2003 was going to be a tight squeeze, with the Labor Day holiday coming days earlier than in most years. Throw into the mix a still-sour economy and the war in Iraq, and a few hundred dollars in tax cuts and plummeting interest rates did little to spur consumers into resuming discretionary spending.

Early on, real estate agents and caterers groped for the season's pulse, only to find that what was coming -- or perhaps more accurately, what was not coming -- was anything but robust.

"I was in Florida in March when I took a look at the numbers, and I decided I needed to get back up here," said Stuart Epstein, an owner of Devlin-McNiff, a real estate company that specializes in some of the most expensive sections in the Towns of Southampton and East Hampton.

Most real estate companies earn 10 to 15 percent of their annual revenues on summer rentals, Mr. Epstein said, and that can spell the difference between "a good year and something less." Three years after the high-water mark for summer rentals in 2000, when nearly everything went for the asking price, Mr. Epstein described the situation this year as "a little dicey." It was not until late spring that things began to pick up and midsummer before the August rentals were finally snatched up.

Everywhere on the East End, the refrain seems to be the same. At the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, in East Hampton, Rabbi David J. Gelfand called August "the saving grace in the Hamptons." And this year's August was "better than as good as it gets," he said.

Every year, caterers in the Hamptons urge clients to lock in their dates no later than early spring. John Kowalenko, an owner of the Art of Eating in Amagansett, said he was still booking large parties at midsummer, well after his schedule was ordinarily full.

"People have been incredibly reserved this year," he said. "I had one customer ask what I would do if war broke out." The customer's future son-in-law was a marine and thought he might be shipped out to Iraq before his wedding date.

"Of course, the war did break out, and he had to go," Mr. Kowalenko said, "but not until after the wedding."

There were other signs of unease. The quintessential catered occasion in the Hamptons is the fund-raiser, and at several charity auctions, Mr. Kowalenko said that guests were a bit slower in raising their paddles this year and that bids were noticeably lower.

Mr. Kowalenko said that he knew early on that it was going to be a rough summer, so for the first time he increased his advertising budget, adding 30 to 35 percent (he would not say how much he spent). It was a gamble that has paid for itself, he said, but he found himself catering smaller, more intimate parties, often with more modest menus.

"It didn't bring me the business I hoped it would for June and July," he said, "but it's certainly made all the difference for September and October."

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