Thursday, October 1, 2026
By Alex Costello
acostello@liherald.com
Though there was a brief respite last week, the snow has returned. It has impacted everything this winter: driving, walking, peoples’ health and even businesses’ bottom lines.
Until the late February thaw came, snow was piling up everywhere. It was blocking streets and sidewalks, taking up valuable parking space and making getting around Rockville Centre much harder than it should have been.
“It’s difficult for people to get to us,” said Bruce Mirkin, owner of Accent on Eyes. “If they can’t park and they can’t walk down the street or get through the piles of snow, then it’s difficult. We’re a place where people have to come in to try on frames and lenses.
“It’s usually a slower time,” he added. “But this winter, especially, has been a challenging time.”
Foot traffic to Mirkin’s store has dropped since the winter started, and it has had an effect on his sales. It’s forced him to approach the season differently than he has in the past.
“We’re being more creative in our marketing,” he said. “We did a Gucci trunk show...where we had the whole line from Gucci. We don’t usually do trunk shows this time of year, but we had a really good response to that.”
A business’s location in the village has also been a factor this winter. Businesses that rely on the parking lots in the rear of their buildings have seen fewer customers coming in.
“It’s terrible,” said Jay Post, owner of Happy Hostess Caterers. “They just don’t take away the snow. All this stuff should just be taken out and put in the lake or a park. Somewhere where it doesn’t affect the business.”
Post said that after one of the first snowfalls, the lot behind his business on Sunrise Highway was thoroughly plowed, but hadn’t been since.
Whether the snow has directly impacted his business is hard for Post to say, since January and February are usually slow times for him. But while foot traffic in the store may have decreased, he has definitely seen a spike in the number of deliveries his company is making. “Our delivery is way up,” he said. “But people aren’t walking into the store as much.”
For Rockville Centre’s thriving restaurant scene, the snow hasn’t hurt business so much as shifted the demographic of customers.
“Rockville Centre has a unique dynamic,” said Art Gustafson, owner of Chadwicks at the Station. “And one of the unique dynamics is that this time of year, we’re not as adversely affected by heavy snow as most businesses because people still dine, but they don’t travel. They don’t leave town.”
Gustafson said that when it snows, he’s seen the customers in his restaurant shift from people coming in from out-of-town to mainly Rockville Centre residents -- people who still want to dine out, but don’t want to drive far because of the weather.
“The business will drop a little bit if the snow is affecting the roads,” Gustafson said. “But if our doors are open, we seem to have a unique enclave here in Rockville Centre that allows us to still operate in lieu of the storm.”
