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No Laughing Matter: Caroline’s on Broadway Struggles Despite Theatres Reopening
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Broadway’s return is not providing the comedic relief clubs in the theatre district had been hoping.
Caroline Hirsch, founder and owner of Caroline’s on Broadway, told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso she has never experienced a challenge like the COVID-19 pandemic in her four decades in business.
“Business was going very well until Delta hit again and people were alarmed about going out and being in crowds,” she said of the dominant strain of the virus on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
The iconic comedy club reopened Memorial Day Weekend with a ton of pent-up demand for laughs. It took a turn late summer.
“When the vaccine mandate came out, it really curtailed business,” said Hirsch, explaining, “We have people who are canceling because somebody in their group is not vaccinated so they won’t come.”
She told WCBS 880 that she believes vaccine mandates are hurting New York’s live entertainment industry, but elevated COVID-19 infections are driving hesitancy as well.
“Some comedians don’t want to go on tour; they want to wait until 2022. So, therefore, we have a bit of a talent shortage,” Hirsch said. “First, we had a labor shortage. We couldn’t hire enough waiters and waitresses. We couldn’t hire enough staff people in the kitchen.”
Carolines On Broadway Owner Caroline Hirsch Photo credit Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Ms. Foundation For Women Caroline’s on Broadway had also been relying on private parties this fall to recover some losses, but some events have been postponed to next year. As a result, she predicts businesses in the Theatre District will experience a slow recovery.
A handful of Broadway shows returned last month at full capacity for fully vaccinated and masked audience members, cast and crew. But, on opening night, Hirsch asked workers in a garage how many cars arrived and found out only two people drove in to see a show.
“I think we need to be realistic about this and not just say, ‘Oh, Broadway’s reopening,’ but Broadway’s going to have a really tough time reopening. And, I think that we all need to help them out. I think people have to make a concerted effort to go out and buy a ticket to Broadway,” she said.
Caroline’s organizes the annual New York Comedy Festival, which makes its return to the stage November 8-14 with pop-up shows throughout the five boroughs.
“We’re going to do close to 150 shows around the city,” Hirsch told Connolly and Carousso.
Bill Maher, Marc Maron and Michelle Wolf are among the comics taking the microphone.
“You’ll have a great laugh,” said Hirsch who admits despite all the pandemic challenges and stress, she is still laughing, herself.
Caroline’s on Broadway first opened as a small cabaret in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood in 1981 before moving to the South Street Seaport six years later. It eventually made its home on Broadway in 1992. Hirsch is known for giving Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and countless other comedians their start.
Watch the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above for ideas on getting Broadway back on its feet.
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WCBS 880 Weekly Rewind: Shining a Light on Missing Persons Cases; NJ Nurse Has Change of Heart about COVID Vaccine
Produced by Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The case of Gabby Petito has garnered national attention and her family is hoping to bring awareness to other missing persons cases. Lynda Lopez covers some of those and what resources are available for families on The 880 Weekly Rewind.
Plus, vaccination mandates lead to more Americans getting the COVID shot. A New Jersey nurse, previously vocal against the vaccine and mandates, told WCBS 880 why she changed her mind and is now promoting the shot.
Lopez also looks at the dangers of the U.S. defaulting on its roughly $30 trillion debt ahead of a fast approaching deadline while President Joe Biden meets with Democrats to urge unity over the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social spending package.
Subscribe and download The 880 Weekly Rewind podcast for in-depth reporting and deeper analysis of the top stories of the week, produced by Neil A. Carousso, for WCBS-AM New York.
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When to go ‘All In’ on Your Dream Business
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Risk is assumed when someone starts a business, but oftentimes, entrepreneurs aim for a soft landing. At some point, founders must take a leap of faith.
Marla Aaron left advertising agency McCann Worldgroup in 2012 where she was vice president of communications for its division MRM. Her aha moment came during a business trip in France. Away from her kids, a coffee pot exploded leaving her with burns and she decided to return home. She presented her husband with an ambitious business plan on PowerPoint and left her job a week later to follow her passion designing jewelry.
Aaron told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank, that she wishes she started her jewelry business earlier. Even after she did, she felt rejected when she was initially turned down by major retailers and picked up freelance jobs in advertising as a safety net.
“That was probably a mistake and that was a waste of time because I wasn’t doing anything that well,” she said. “I was probably a mediocre consultant and I was doing a mediocre job starting my business. I had to fully pull the rug out and focus 100 percent.”
Her advice for anyone looking to leave their job to start a business or take their side hustle full-time: “You have to do it. You have to go all in in every respect.”
Aaron went door-to-door in New York’s Diamond District selling her first pieces of fine jewelry made from industrial climbing carabiners. When one retailer took an interest, she knew she had a viable business and began designing, selling, and eventually, building the Marla Aaron Jewelry brand.
She had just signed a lease for her showroom on 47th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in Midtown Manhattan at the start of the pandemic lockdown. Her new space remained empty.
Instagram helped her showcase her products and communicate her story, but she missed the personal touch with clients. Aaron and her employees had been meeting over Zoom at the beginning and end of each work day to keep everyone engaged. That gave her an idea.
“We’re like Zoom is working for us; let’s do Zoom appointments. So, we started doing Zoom appointments, but it wasn’t just like, ‘Hey Zoom with a customer.’ We understood that it required orchestration, rehearsal, dominating the archive of photos that we had so it would be seamless,” Aaron said.
She discovered that the Zoom appointments were most effective when two sales representatives were on each call. One person operates the technical side, showing their catalogue of product photos, while the other representative describes each piece and asks questions to determine the customers’ tastes.
“We just figured it out,” said Aaron.
Figuring it out was not easy, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when jewelry was far from prospective customers’ minds.
Before COVID, Aaron vowed to donate silver heart lockets to single mothers every year, which was derived out of her own experience. She remembers feeling down on Mother’s Day as a single mom before her second marriage. Her son was too young at the time to understand the holiday and she sat at brunch empty handed while she watched families exchange flowers. So when her business suffered at the outset of the pandemic, Aaron tried to make the most out of a bad situation and lift the spirits of others.
“We call it the ‘Lock Your Mom Project’ and we give them away to single moms. The first year I gave 50 and every year I had doubled it subsequently. And, the first year of the pandemic, we had planned to give out 800. I was thinking, we can do this. We can figure out a way to get this done,” Aaron said.
While the showroom remained shuttered, they found single mothers online and began shipping lockets from Marla’s house for Mother’s Day 2020. Aaron told Connolly and Carousso that’s when they realized they could sell a lot of jewelry virtually.
Marla Aaron Jewelry has more than 112,000 followers on Instagram. But, what those followers don’t realize is that the woman behind the brand is also the one operating the account.
Aaron calls her business “rebellious” in how they’ve bucked traditional jewelry marketing.
“We speak to people in plain language. It’s not covered in fairies and frost and Photoshop,” she explained. “It’s just really honest and authentic and real.”
Aaron sees her jewelry designs as an extension of herself and believes her story resonates with customers.
Today, she employs 18 people who help manage production, marketing, customer service and her wholesale accounts. Aaron continues to design all the jewelry she sells out of her office in the Diamond District.
See Marla Aaron’s creative process, her advice for taking the leap into entrepreneurship, and the new ways of selling jewelry that has helped her expand her reach on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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WCBS 880 Weekly Rewind: House Democrats Propose Corporate Tax Hikes While New York’s Likely Next Mayor Courts the Business Community
Produced by Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The House Ways and Means Committee proposed raising taxes on corporations and high-income earners to pay for Democrats’ $3.5 trillion social spending plan. The proposal would also end the retirement account loophole that allows people to convert pre-tax retirement savings accounts into a ROTH IRA for those who earn $400,000 or more a year.
On The 880 Weekly Rewind, Lynda Lopez looks at the tax hike proposal out of Washington while local lawmakers like Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) fight to end the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions in the Democrats’ reconciliation measure. In New York, Democratic Mayoral Candidate Eric Adams courted the business community at Anthony Scaramucci’s Wall Street flagship SALT Conference.
“New York will no longer be anti-business,” Adams declared at SALT NY, indicating a major shift from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. “This is going to be a place where we welcome business and not turn into the dysfunctional city that we have been for so many years.”
New York City traffic returned to pre-pandemic levels this week as schools and Broadway reopened. Lopez also talked to Charlotte St. Martin, president of The Broadway League, about the larger economic boost.
Subscribe and download The 880 Weekly Rewind podcast for in-depth reporting and deeper analysis of the top stories of the week, produced by Neil A. Carousso, for WCBS-AM New York.
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Long Island Retail Supplier Faces Supply Chain Hurdles Ahead of Holiday Rush
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Small businesses are struggling to handle new financial pressures as the COVID-19 pandemic extends into its 18th month.
Hicksville-based Econoco Corporation, which supplies store fixtures and displays to retailers, is now facing a myriad of supply chain issues because of pandemic-related manufacturing holdups overseas and surging demand for consumer products.
“Things will get worse before it gets better,” said Econoco CEO Barry Rosenberg on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
He said delays are amplified ahead of the holidays.
“(Independent retailers are) not willing to wait 3-4 months for a custom made product,” Rosenberg explained. “We’re struggling to get containers on board ocean freight lines that can ship here to New York. This is the biggest problem we’re facing.”
He told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso that he is now competing with and bidding against big-box stores like Costco for space on ships. All of these factors are driving up prices and being passed onto his customers. Last October, Rosenberg said, it cost them $3,000 for a 40-foot container aboard those ships. But, 11 months later, it costs $23,000 to ship his products from China to the U.S.
“We’ve implemented three price increases to the tune of almost 50 percent,” said Rosenberg. “It’s really a shame, but this is the direction we’re headed and we’re in an inflationary time.”
He lamented that it is disproportionately affecting small and mid-size businesses.
He told WCBS 880 large retailers like Amazon and Grainger, which Econoco supplies racks, mannequins, hangers and other store fixtures to, have demanded that they absorb the increased costs. Rosenberg pulled all inventory from their platforms because it wouldn’t make the company profitable.
“They’re squeezing the little guy,” said Rosenberg.
But, the most successful businesses are constantly making adjustments. Exploring new markets like cannabis is one reason why Econoco has stayed in business on Long Island for 96 years.
Recognizing that retail footprints are shrinking along with demand for his store displays, Rosenberg sought out areas in retail that are not suffering. He found a growing niche in legal cannabis and launched DisplayDispensary.com where he supplies cannabis displays, cash wraps and acrylic retail display showcases to licensed vendors.
“Now, you’ve got 13 states that have recreational cannabis legal, starting out on the West Coast, and I think we were late to the dance, but we are hoping to build our brand,” he said.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are in the process of setting up state licensed marketplaces.
“If it’s anything like Colorado or Washington state, you’re going to have two or three cannabis stores on every block,” said Rosenberg.
Recreational use of cannabis has been legalized in 18 states.
The Hicksville-based retail supplier is also changing how they sell. Rosenberg has traditionally hired a robust outside sales team to engage with big buyers, but he is now seeing smaller and leaner competitors signing major retailers such as Banana Republic – a clothing giant an Econoco sales representative had been trying to hook for years.
“What’s happening is, the buyers are getting younger and they are using the Internet for basic purposes,” said Rosenberg, continuing, “There’s a lot less sales people that are meeting at offices, particularly during the pandemic.
Obviously, offices are closed, so you can’t go there. Nobody’s taking anyone to lunch or to dinner or to ballgames.”The pandemic disruption is opening the door to new opportunities for smaller businesses looking to get big clients.
In pivoting, Rosenberg has upgraded four websites in the last year and a half and is doing more digital advertising to reach those buyers.
See more on the current business challenges and creative solutions on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight video above.
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