Harbor Businesses on Sluggish Path to Recovery

Although many harbor businesses are beginning to rebound from the recent economic downturn, the recovery has been – and continues to be – a long, slow slog. 

Small businesses, which make up the majority of all businesses in Redondo Beach, have been hit especially hard, said Marna Smeltzer, president of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce. Of the nearly 2,000 businesses in Redondo, more than 1,200 have fewer than five employees, she said. 

"If you go into stores, you don't have the same number of salespeople helping you," she said. "Our local businesses have had to cut their workforce." 

But local establishments have begun to rebound. 

At Baleen restaurant and lounge, where entrees run upwards of $30, "we are doing far better than we were at the same time last year," said Shanon Ferguson, general manager. As of late March, the restaurant had served approximately 800 more guests than by the same time in 2009.

Still, employers and employees alike have had to adjust to the more frugal reality brought on by the recession.

"It definitely changed everything," said Clinton Umbargar, a bartender at Baleen. "It means fewer people during the week, although weekends are about the same."  

Many of the restaurant's guests — vacationing yacht owners and business executives — were long considered more or less recession-proof. Not any more.

At the Portofino Hotel and Yacht Club, where Baleen is housed, the management has increased marketing and cut its rates said Chris Bracken, director of sales and marketing for the hotel.

The strategy is working — the hotel is maintaining an occupancy rate of 75 percent.

"We're doing very well," Bracken said  "We haven't laid anyone off in a while, and we'll be starting to hire again soon" in preparation for the busy summer season of weddings and vacationers. 

For many small businesses, staying afloat in a difficult economy depends on finding and keeping new customers. A few blocks away from Portofino and Baleen is the Triathlon Lab, a one-stop depot for triathletes, for whom city charters and amendments seem to matter less than the nuts and bolts — sometimes the literal nuts and bolts. 

"We just deal with it," said employee Rob Keating. Triathlons are expensive, and since luxury leisure activities are often the first to be cut from a personal budget, it has been important for Triathlon Lab to invest in its relationships with its customers.

"We try to keep everybody inside, with us," said Keating, who, as though to demonstrate, was showing a Yorba Linda triathlete how to change his own tire, a procedure that would have cost $10 at bike shop.

Change a man's bike tire, he can race for a day. Teach him to change his own tire, he can race for a lifetime.