DeKALB | DeKalb businesses lose many customers during winter break, since students make up much of the clientele.

“The week between Christmas and New Year’s, this was the most desolate place,” said Java 101 owner Michael Fitzgerald. “You could look down Lucinda and see nobody and then look the other way toward the dorms and still see nobody.”

Many local businesses see a great decrease in customers and in turn lose a lot of business and money.

“I play catch-up between all the breaks,” Fitzgerald said. “I do good for a while and business is great, but then there’s another [student] vacation and I get behind again.”

The new owner of Bar One, Bob Myers, said he also suffered from the lack of students this winter break.

“There was a substantial decrease in customers. Our business was cut in half,” Myers said. “It definitely makes it more difficult to pay bills.”

Aware of the upcoming drop in business over winter break, Chipotle general manager Karen Melody said they prepared as much as they could.

“We were prepared,” Melody said. “Much of our employees went away for break and we cut down on food orders.”

Despite the decrease in business, some local businesses said they were not affected as greatly as others.

Melody said Chipotle did “pretty well” during its first winter break in DeKalb.

“We did see a 40 percent decrease [in business], which was better than we expected,” Melody said. “We were expecting a decrease of 50-60 percent.”

Despite the pinch felt by other local businesses, establishments like Cracker Jax – a specialty gift store – and Target did not see any decrease in business.

“There definitely has been a decrease in foot traffic, obviously with less students,” said Kristin Perez, Target executive team leader. “But people must be spending more money because our sales are still positive; our sales have still increased compared to last year.”

Cracker Jax owner Lauren Woods said her business was similarly affected.

“This Christmas season was really good,” Woods said. “The break did not affect us too badly. Perhaps new people in the area offset the students leaving.”

Despite losses during NIU’s winter vacation, owners like Fitzgerald and Myers say they are confident about the coming semester.

“We have a busy music schedule and we now have gelato, so that will help business pick up,” Fitzgerald said.