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Holiday season means big business for Valley alcohol sales
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Business at Chalet Premier really starts to bustle this time of year.
“We are busier before Christmas than New Year’s Eve,” said Joyce D’Amico, co-owner of the North Lima beer, wine and liquor store on Market Street.
On the other side of Mahoning County, Al Franceschelli does 25 percent of his business at A&C Southway Beverage this time of year.
“From Thanksgiving to New Year’s we do more [sales] than any other time of the year,” he said.
Both stores sell more and sell higher quality items because customers tend to splurge a little more during the holidays.
At Chalet Premier, owners Bill and Joyce D’Amico and John and Carol Potter see an escalation in liquor, beer and wine sales. This is the 15th holiday season for the owners who took over the operation in 2000.
“I don’t think we were ready for what exactly took place, but we knew it would be better than the normal weekend,” Bill said of the holiday season.
Chalet carries approximately 1,200 different wines, 1,000 types of liquor and 700 brands of beer, and within those brands are different selections.
Liquor gift boxes from the state are the first to fly off the shelves.
“Crown Royal is always the biggest gift pack seller,” Joyce said.
Other hot sellers include: Jack Daniels, the Christmas Ale from Great Lakes Brewing Co. and red wines. Chalet already has a mountain of Christmas Ale ready for customers to grab and go and an assortment of holiday wines the connoisseurs of the store suggest for this season.
Dec. 23 is notably the busiest day for Chalet.
“The economy is good, so our business sort of follows the economy,” John said.
To specialize holiday gifts, Chalet will have a bottle etcher at the store from 4 to 7 p.m. Dec. 4.
This will be the last holiday season at A&C Southway Beverage’s 2733 South Ave. location. Next year the store will relocate to the former Edison Financial Credit Union at 45 South Ave downtown. Construction on the new location is underway.
“We think that [sales] will improve drastically only for the sheer fact that we are covering an area we don’t cover now,” Franceschelli said. “You are going to see there what you see in a big city.”
He expects to expand his customer base and with that expand his selection. His current customers are from the neighborhood and he tends to sell more brandy, gin, vodkas and tequilas during the holiday season. The store also has wines and more of the traditional types of beer. The new store will carry 600 to 700 types of wine, a 100-foot row of beers, including craft, and finer spirits.
“Being a city store we sell a lot of different products,” he said. “We do most of our sales here in the next month.”