Weeklong winter storm leaves some Portland-area businesses in a financial hole

At least once a week, someone from the West Linn restaurant Sushi Kuni makes a trip to Seattle to pick up imported fresh fish and seafood. This week, owner Agatha Chan said, she took a risk and drove north through a winter storm to get this week’s order.

“We already paid for the order and we cannot stop the shipment from Japan,” she said. “It’s quite dangerous, but we had to pick it up because we paid a broker to clear the customs and the fish is just sitting in the airport.”

The slick roads, though, made it nearly impossible for Chan’s roughly 15 employees to get to work, and without a staff, she can’t operate the restaurant. Most of the fish will go to waste.

For Chan, who started the restaurant in July 2022, having the restaurant closed for a week is “a substantial financial strain.”

“I’m so struggling right now,” she said. “With zero income this last week, how am I going to pay the bills, rent and my workers salaries?”

Thousands of businesses lost sales during the week of snow and ice, compounded by power outages that forced closures and spoiled inventory. (Many additionally suffered storm damage, including burst pipes.) Some, like grocery stores, may see little impact to their bottom line, as customers who still needed to eat stocked up before the storm and will replenish their pantries afterward.

Others, like Chan’s restaurant, will be lucky to see any post-storm bump, much less make up sales lost during the weeklong closure.

Todd Ruberg, a Lake Oswego-based senior partner and analyst of retail and consumer goods at the consultancy Simpactful, said businesses that tend to get hit the most during bad winter weather events are restaurants and small businesses who sell non-essential consumer goods, like apparel and other gifts.

“Restaurants fare the worst because typically, you don’t eat out more when things return to normal,” Ruberg said. “So those sales lost during the event period tend to be completely lost. You don’t recover any of it.”

Similarly, small apparel shops rely on a steady foot traffic for sales, he said, but also don’t have the same resources or labor force as big retailers when there’s weather surprises.

“It’s the small businesses that get hurt the most. You know, where they’re paying hourly employees,” he said.

And Ruberg said that January and February are typically slower months for many businesses. He said a weak January could mean some retailers will have to discount early to get rid of inventory.

That’s what Sadie Sifuentes, a florist and who owns Quad’s Garden floral shop in Fairview, is facing now. Her shop has been closed since last Saturday, and last night she put all her perishable inventory — like cut flowers — on sale to hopefully draw in some sales but also to make way for other ordered inventory.

Sifuentes said she had to cancel all her orders for flower deliveries because of road conditions, and events she was going to bring flowers to were canceled. She said she lost a lot of money ordering flowers for a funeral that’s been postponed to next week — she had to throw them away and will have to reorder next week.

“Our income for the store sustains my house, my parents’ home and our bills at a shop,” Sifuentes said. “During COVID, we restructured our business and learned different avenues to get income, but when you have snow and ice like this, it blocks everything.”

Sifuentes said she was getting ready to outfit her shop for Valentine’s Day, but now she worries that another winter weather event might come in February like last year.

“If this happened during Valentine’s week, we would have lost way more in numbers. Because think of how much roses cost at wholesale price these days, and how much we would have to stock and hope to sell,” she said. “You don’t even know what’s going to happen with the weather anymore.”

– Kristine de Leon; kdeleon@oregonian.com