SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Baseball means business for many businesses located near Oracle Park in San Francisco, where business owners have been thrown another curveball by the current MLB labor dispute.
With the Major League Baseball lockout persisting, Opening Day has already been delayed. There is potential for more games to be cancelled completely if the league, team owners and the MLB Players Association can’t come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement.
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If that happens, businesses around the ballpark will suffer, including Yummy Plates, a restaurant at 3rd and Townsend Streets owned by Reza Khajenouri. His business has already suffered greatly due to COVID.
“We were hoping for this season to cover some of our losses,” Khajenouri said. “If baseball is not coming back this year, [there’s an] 80% [chance] I’ll close for good.”
If games get cancelled, he’ll miss out on huge days of business.
“There’s no way to replace that,” he said.
He opened his business just before the pandemic in 2019 and has struggled ever since.
“I had five employees here before. Now I just work by myself. I run the whole place by myself,” Khajenouri said. “I’ll have to make a decision to stay here or not. We are at the breaking point.”
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However, the more established spots will also suffer if games get cancelled.
“If they can’t get a deal done today, I’d be surprised if we were playing baseball before the middle of May,” said MoMo’s owner Scott Morton. “We need this season, we need every single one of the 81 home games, and we need the Giants to play well. There’s nothing to hide. This season is very important.”
His business needs baseball. His seasonal employees do too.
“Cooks, bussers, servers, bartenders — a lot of those people come back season after season in anticipation of using this as a second job, using this as their primary source of income,” he said. “So it kind of puts everything into a bit of a confusing business realm.”
Morton thinks MoMo’s will be able to hold out for a while if the lockout persists and games end up getting cancelled. However, he is concerned about his neighbors and the rest of the neighborhood.
“We have the good fortune of having been here for a while. We have a great neighborhood crowd, we have a lot of followers and a lot of regulars who come in and support this place regardless of the season. I’m worried for the other businesses around here, what a month or two of no baseball would do to their bottom lines,” he said.
For Khajenouri, a full baseball season could mean success; a shortened season or no season could mean he strikes out.
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“The only reason I opened this place was because it was close to the ballpark,” he said. “All I can say is, I hope they come back.”
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