Mother’s Day spending could help boost the post-COVID economy
KTVU’s Jesse Gary reports.
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) – Procrastinators should be on alert.
Sunday is Mother’s Day and this year, the love shown to moms around the Bay Area will do more than make them blush. It’ll also help the burgeoning COVID recovery.
Inside the Vault restaurant in San Francisco’s Financial District, mostly empty tables signal a calm before the traditional holiday crush. Most Bay Area restaurants are already booked solid for Mother’s Day.
“We’re expecting it to be magical. Because we can actually be in a room where the kids can see their moms, for the first time, in the safest space you can possibly be,” said owner Tai Ricci.
This year sits in sharp contrast to last for restaurateurs. Many counties are in the Orange or Yellow Tier of reopening, as opposed to shuttering due to COVID restrictions.
“This is the first the first major event that’s happened since things started to open up again. And it’ll be interesting to see how much people get out in the way they would have two years ago,” said Dr. Robert Chapman Wood.
A strategic management professor at San Jose State University, Wood said a sense of greater safeness for consumers could lead to more people out and about. This, even though most are still not fully vaccinated against COVID.
“It’s just small measure of how much progress we’re making in getting back to normal,” Wood said.
The normally bustling San Francisco Flower Mart is once again seeing the full strength of Mother’s Day sales this year. Executives said the mart has survived World War II, 9/11, the Great Recession, and now COVID.
“Mother’s day is the biggest flower holiday in the u-s. and if we didn’t get those sales through this market, my vendors probably would not have survived,” said Jeanne Boes, the flower mart’s chief operations officer.
The mart is surviving, and Mother’s Day weekend, economically blooming. So this year, showing mom how much she means, is also showing the resiliency of the local economy.
“Now we’ve just had one hard time for a year. And this mother’s day is kind of the welcome back,” said Ricci.
Originally Appeared On: https://www.ktvu.com/news/mothers-day-spending-could-help-boost-post-covid-economy