The city of Manchester continues to take center stage in many conversations on the campaign trail this election season.
NHPR’s Rick Ganley spoke with Steve Stevens, owner of Breezeway Pub, and Heather McGrail, president and CEO of Greater Manchester Chamber, about the challenges and successes local businesses are seeing in the city. This segment was part of NHPR’s remote broadcast from the Airport Diner in Manchester ahead of Election Day.
Transcript
Rick Ganley: Steve, I appreciate you being here this morning since I know you had a big Halloween bash for customers at your club last night. You've owned Breezeway for about 20 years now?
Steven Stevens: Correct.
Rick Ganley: Now, what kind of space were you trying to make for the community with your club when you first started?
Steve Stevens: Well, we wanted to reach out to the people who didn't have a place to be, and initially it was gay men. And then I wanted it to be more inclusive. And over the years it became more what I call alternative, and we reached out to women, reached out to straight folk. And now what I say is everyone's welcome as long as you're respectful of each other. And if anything, we have more straight women on a Friday night than we do gay men or women.
Rick Ganley: So it's kind of making it a destination, a place to go for people here in the city. Heather, can you tell us more about the Greater Manchester Chamber and the vision that the chamber specifically has for Manchester going forward?
Heather McGrail: Well, I think you just gave me a perfect segue because it's really making Manchester more of a destination, and that is happening over time. We have so many businesses right now opening in the Greater Manchester area. We almost some weeks have a ribbon cutting every single day, believe it or not. And I've been with the chamber for eight years. I have never seen so many ribbon cuttings.
Rick Ganley: What kind of businesses are they?
Heather McGrail: All different kinds. Yesterday we were at Dishon Bakery, which opened on Elm Street. It's gluten-free bread. You can get fresh baked bread right on Elm Street in the spot where Cafe la Reine used to be, if you're familiar. We had Wanderlust two days prior to that, which is like a therapeutic services business. So it runs the gamut, but I think that really is showing that the influx to Manchester, from a business perspective, is really hot right now.
Rick Ganley: What are some of the ways the organization is working to try to, you know, bring businesses in, bring that vision to the city, make it more of a destination?
Heather McGrail: So what is too little known is that Manchester reinstated its economic development office a few years ago. So the Manchester Economic Development Office is doing a great job with business attraction, working with our chamber and other city officials to make the climate ripe for it. So a lot of changes in the city, like zoning amendments, helping with creating more housing, but also with trying to get that first floor retail so that we can have that mixed use that cities nationwide are doing, because we know it's the way to go as far as being able to create more housing.
Rick Ganley: Retail [on the] first floor and residential [on the] top floors?
Heather McGrail: Yeah.
Rick Ganley: Steve, what kind of challenges are you experiencing as a small business owner in the city now?
Steve Stevens: Employees is an ongoing issue. One, there's not a whole heck of a lot of affordable housing, which is one of the things I'd really like to see.
Rick Ganley: Something we hear about all the time, yeah.
Steve Stevens: And it's vital because, I mean, no one's getting rich in this business, and they need some place where they can actually afford to live and be nearby. And fortunately, my people are starting to gravitate this way. They've found the right places, but there aren't enough right places.
Rick Ganley: Were you finding your employees were living far away?
Steve Stevens: Yes, in fact, I was just talking to one of my bartenders last night, and he lived an hour and a half away for a while, and I was like, that's no way to live a life. And fortunately, he was able to find a place in Manchester.
Rick Ganley: But you feel like it is getting better?
Steven Stevens: It is getting better, but there's a ways to go still.
Rick Ganley: What about some other challenges as far as being a small business owner in the state of New Hampshire generally?
Steve Stevens: Well, the city, it has its issues, but it's getting much better than it was. There's a homeless issue that, again, related to housing that has been problematic. In fact, actually, Tia Elie, who's next door to me, just started Acts of Kindness, which is a nonprofit that's actually helping the homeless. And they're hoping to buy a house for some folk coming soon. For what it's worth, a plug for Tia, but the housing, as I said, is a big issue. But, you know, just keeping employees in general because the pandemic really, really changed things up for us. And in fact, we were closed for several months and it's been a hard bounce back from that.
Rick Ganley: Well, that's been such an issue for everyone that kind of slow rebounding, I think, post pandemic for so many businesses. Are you hearing that too, Heather?
Heather McGrail: Yes, definitely. I think it's amazing how we think we're out of it and then realizing the ripple effects of COVID are still there, really for a lot of us nonprofits as well.
Rick Ganley: I want to ask you both, as we're approaching Election Day here, candidates [are] often referring to Manchester on the campaign trail and, you know, not always the most positive light, as we know, in the governor's race in particular. Steve, how do you feel about the way the candidates are talking about the city, especially as a longtime small business owner?
Steve Stevens: It's painful to listen to, to be honest, because Manchester is a far better place than how it's presented in these 30 second ads. And I'm not going to, you know, I'm not picking names or naming names, but it's unfortunate because Manchester has so much to offer. The downtown is vibing as far as I'm concerned. And is there a room for improvement? Always. I'd like to make Manchester more walkable, for instance. That would be one of my goals. But all in all, it's painful to listen to these ads.
Rick Ganley: Heather, I want to give you the last word here. What about you? What do you wish people realized about the city of Manchester?
Heather McGrail: I would say don't believe everything you see on TV. And obviously we're a nonpartizan. Hopefully it's obvious we're a nonpartizan organization, but we're very pro Manchester, as you would imagine. And we are the economic engine for the state. So just thinking about that fact and do we really want to put Manchester in that light. Obviously it's political rhetoric and we get that. But I think it's really important, more so now than ever that we bubble up the great stories of Manchester, like Steve just talked about, and how it's turning and transforming itself.
