Winter weather slows weekend business traffic

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - As the snow and ice melted in Eastern Carolina on Sunday, the eateries and shops that closed a day before due to weather reopened.

“Friday night we were actually open and when the weather got bad, we decided to close, just because we didn’t know how the roads were actually going to be,” said Victoria Jenkins, a manager at Tiebreakers in Greenville. “It was better to be safe than sorry to make sure that the staff was safe and could actually travel.”

Jenkins says managers followed forecasts closely, making safety calls as necessary.

With the roads clearer than before, the sports bar was full of mostly families and large groups, including the Hines family, who came in for an opportunity to get out.

“We’ve been home for two days,” said Kimberly Hines. “Yesterday, we stayed home and took extra caution and didn’t go out on the roads.”

On Saturday, the NFL Conference playoff games would have brought in big crowds.

“It kind of hurt us because we probably would have been really busy,” said Jenkins. “But with today, being back open again, we’ve been really busy since we opened.”

Hines’s son, Colton, was looking forward to seeing Los Angeles Rams take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Tiebreakers management said they have a game plan, working to make back the revenue lost over the weekend from the weather.

“If we get snow, I think we’ll always be open, but when there’s ice involved, that’s when it gets a little riskier,” said Jenkins.

And as conditions improve, business is expected to go back to normal.

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