TO: Offices of the Esteemed Members of the Providence City Council

FROM: Office of Councilman Grant Senne Ward 2

CC: Office of the Secretary
DATE: December 15th, 2014
RE: Report from Small Business Owners on the Status of Thayer Street
Esteemed Members of the Council,
I want to bring to your attention a report on the Thayer Street area of College Hill
on the East Side. Between the cross streets of Bowen to the north, Waterman Street to the
South, and Hope Street to the East, Thayer Street has historically been one of the most
bustling centers of commerce in the city of Providence and the New England region. The
recent economic downturn in our Ocean State has hit this area hard especially the small
business operators. Citizens of Rhode Island as well as visitors are not spending their
time or money on Thayer Street and it is crippling the service industry. I would like to
submit this memo as a call to action for this committee. We as a committee need to enact
policies that will generate more commerce around Thayer Street and kick-start the
economy of one of Providences most important neighborhoods.
According to their website, Thayer Street District Management Authority
(TSDMA) was established by Thayer Street property owners and granted status to
operate as a Business Improvement District by the City of Providence Code of
Ordinances and in accordance with RI General Law 45-59-14(b) in January 2006. 1
Landlords fill most of the Board of Directors positions with some merchants and Brown
University representatives; this poses a representation problem for deciding what is best
for the general wellbeing of the community because the landlords are more concerned
with tenants paying their rent and not so much about bringing foot traffic.
Thayer Street will invariably be tied to Brown University. Brown is celebrating its
th
250 anniversary this year and Thayer Street cuts right down the center of campus.
Students, faculty, and university visitors of all the Providence higher education
institutions pound the Thayer Street pavement daily adding vibrancy. Brown sponsored
transportation and security services patrol the area and share some jurisdiction with the
Providence police force. In the late afternoon and on the weekends local high school
students join these members of the Brown community to add to the youthful pulse of the
street. A few of the students at the University that I talked with indicated their time spent
on Thayer is the most interaction with the city of Providence that they experience because
they do not often venture outside of College Hill.
Events put on by the TSDMA have included The Thayer Street Fete Art Festival
and Holiday Stroll on Thayer. In order to finance events like this and the general
1

"Who We Are & What We Do." Thayer Street District. Thayer Street District Management
Authority, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.

administration of the TSDMA, business owners pay additional taxes, on top of their
exorbitant rents, to be recognized as part of the district administration. Street vendors are
brought in during these events to attract crowds but the consequence is that shop owners
end up losing business. TSDMA roles include: daily sidewalk cleaning and trash
removal, a recycling program, collaboration of member resources, and promotion of
events for the subscribing members of the coalition. The TSDMA brings some positives
but the business owners on the street have some skepticism about their involvement with
it as well as some uncertainty about the future of their businesses.
Recently I took some time to sit down with three constituents that own and
operate businesses on Thayer to hear what they had to say about the state of commerce in
the area. Names will be changed and locations redacted for the sake of privacy but I did
get some background on each owner. Their experience owning a shop on the street ranges
from 3-25 years. All of them operate as food vendors whose establishments are
independently owned, not part of a chain. One of them has owned multiple businesses
while another branched off from his familys ownership of a Thayer Street restaurant to
start his own. Each of them provided valuable insights into what its like to run a business
on Thayer Street in 2014.
My first interview was with a man that I will refer to as Ralph and his assistant
Ill refer to as Lisa. Ralph has owned a business on Thayer Street for close to 25 years.
He opened up a fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant on the north end of Thayer in 1990,
Ill call it Mean Wraps, and shortly after opened a hybrid lounge/bar that Ill call Venka.
He spoke very nostalgically about nights that people would come from all over Rhode
Island to drink at Venka until the early hours of the morning, go across the street to Mean
Wraps and get food, then come back and keep drinking till 4 in the morning. He prides
himself at being able to read peoples behavior and cites it as the main reason for his
longevity. Ralph says the biggest difference in customer behavior today is the reduction
in the duration of their stay. He talked about just five or six years ago parties of 4-5
would come in for dinner around 8 and stay for drinks till midnight or later. They did not
pregame at their homes or hurry their waiter to bring them the check as soon as
possible so they could move on to the next bar.
Mean Pockets shut down in the nineties and Venka saw its demise earlier this
millennium for reasons Ralph did not get into but he has since opened up a similar bar
that will be called Lank Bar. My visit with Ralph and Lisa took place at 1p.m. on a
Tuesday and their dining room was empty except for a woman sitting at the bar chatting
with an unenthused bartender. After the introductions and questions about how long hes
been on Thayer, I asked Ralph bluntly how business was doing. He responded quickly,
Business is [expletive], nothing like it used to be. You seem like a nice guy, you want to
take over my place for me? Ralph was being sarcastic about selling me the space but his
frustration was genuine. Much of our conversation consisted of stories about his love
affair with Thayer Street as an area. He is a large, Turkish immigrant in his early sixties

who owned a bar in Cancun, Mexico before coming to Rhode Island and raising his two
sons locally.
After the initial introductions he disappeared to a backroom telling me that Lisa
could tell me anything I wanted to know. I asked Lisa how involved Ralph was with dayto-day activities and she responded that he was at Lank Bar every day. He employed Lisa
and one other woman to handle financials, booking, and other operational duties but he
had sole ownership and provided all the capital. She explained that to the average patron
it may seem as if Ralph was wasting money by sitting around the bar all day drinking and
demanding his wait staff around but Lisa emphasized that Ralph had phenomenal
business sense and any lesser of an owner would have gone under by now. She has
worked with Ralph for 9 years and been in the restaurant management industry for 20.
She talked about his frustrations with the spike in rent prices, which was surprising to me
for such a long-standing tenant as himself to 1) not have worked a fair compromise with
his landlord by now and 2) not have grown numb to something like landlord relations
which he has been dealing with for 25 years now.
I detected Ralph and Lisa had an immense amount of pride in the integrity of their
business especially when the topic of following code came up. As an anecdote, Ralph
talked about how Venka was the first bar on Thayer Street to offer hookah and now there
are multiple establishments branding themselves as hookah shops. With the strict
smoking legislation passed in the state of Rhode Island these so called hookah shops are
to bring in at least 51% of their revenue from the sale of hookah or they lose their license.
The purpose of this law was to centralize the usage of damaging tobacco products to one
shop and discourage people from going to these shops and getting drinks. If patrons are
getting liquor from the hookah shop it takes business away from bars whose main source
of revenue comes from their liquor license and also lowers the inhibitions of customers so
they purchase more of the harmful tobacco. Ralph knows from experience that these
shops certainly arent making half their revenue from the sale of hookah based on their
drink prices and the fact that customers purchase more rounds of drinks than hookah.
He intimated to me that the owners of these stores understand there is a lack of
oversight coming from local or state agents and if they are ever audited they can shift
numbers around in their books to meet compliance. Ralph is a proud business owner who
maintains that he runs his business according to the letter of the law. Vendors such as
these hookah shop managers are willing to take the risk of breaking the law because they
know agencies are understaffed and underequipped as a municipal government to enforce
these laws that encourage fair business practices. As I said Ralph is a Turkish man whose
life has always been surrounded by tobacco products but if he can enforce the no
smoking within 50 feet of his restaurant than we need to ensure everyone else is doing the
same.
My second sit-down interview was with a restaurant owner that I will refer to as
Craig. In my estimation Craig is the hardest working man on Thayer Street. He opens his
store at 11 a.m. and closes at midnight on weekdays, 2 a.m. on weekends. He has a

modest staff of four to five workers that have been with him since he opened 3 years ago.
Craig has his hands in all parts of his business including food preparation, equipment
maintenance, deliveries, and accounting.
In March of 2012 Craig left the other store on Thayer that his family has operated
since 1997 to open up Lennys (name changed). The recession in 2011 that hit our state so
hard heavily impacted Craig. Attempting to open a restaurant when much of the state is
struggling financially has been difficult. He says much of his client base is student traffic
and people that work locally. Prior to 2011, he claims, people from all parts of Rhode
Island including Warwick, Cranston, and East Greenwich would come to his familys
store and enjoy what Thayer Street had to offer. Since Lennys inception Craig has seen
commerce levels go down at his store as well as the neighboring businesses.
His biggest request from us as a council is the shrinking of the seasonality gap.
Once winter hits the businesses around Rhode Island are crippled. Whether it is
promotional resources from TSDMA or city at large, he requests that the marketing of
Thayer Street be consistent across all seasons. Portraying Thayer as a summertime
destination to come and stroll in short sleeves and sunglasses debilitates the staffs that
work year round. On top of marketing efforts he wants us to do a better job cleaning up
the streets post snowfall. With the location of his restaurant up on College Hill it can be
difficult for potential customers to get to his shop if the roads arent safe to drive on.
Craig is a very proud, unassuming small business owner who does not wish to bash our
work as a council. His opinions came out in our conversation only after I told him my
position as a councilman and my desire to help out the community he belongs to.
For the third and final sit-down I ventured a bit south down Thayer Street to talk
to a man I will refer to as Jakob. On Waterman Street there is a large national chain
restaurant and Jakob owns this particular franchise location. Jakob is a Polish immigrant
who worked in insurance for 25 years before deciding he wanted a change. Much like the
previous two owners I talked to, Jakob loves spending time with people hence why he
applied for the opportunity to open up this franchise 9 years ago. 60 percent of Jakobs
business takes place between 11 am and 2 pm but the store is open from 7 am to 10 pm.
His desire as a storeowner is to provide the service of an independent mom-and-pop shop
while delivering the quality of food expected from his national stores brand name.
Jakob gave a different perspective because much of his business is dictated to him
through the brands national headquarters. The company that his franchise is a part of
spells out the layout of his store and its product offerings. He says that the longer you
operate as a successful franchise the more autonomy nationals give you. Jakobs biggest
complaint about the management of Thayer Street was food trucks. I dont care much
for food trucks. I pay a lot of money to be on this street and be apart of this community
including all the rules that go along with that. These truck guys come in, steal business,
and then drive away without really being held accountable for anything. Providence was
one of the first cities that adopted the now nationwide phenomenon of food trucks. Just
about any type of food one could want probably has a food truck that offers it parked

somewhere on Thayer Street. Craig and Jakob are in direct competition with these food
trucks because they operate in the fast-casual dining sector. Food trucks are mobile by
nature and legislation regarding their practices is lacking. We as a council need to take a
better look at food trucks and how they can coexist fairly with the tenants operating
within Thayer Street buildings.
As the representative from Ward 2 for this council Thayer Street is a large part of
my jurisdiction. We authorized the Thayer Street District Management Authority to
promote the wellbeing of all businesses in the area but I believe we need to take another
look. Members of the authority are naturally going to shape policies that benefit their
businesses even if it comes to the detriment of others. As an unbiased governmental
agency it is our duty to make sure commerce is coming to the city of Providence
including our bustling public centers like Thayer Street. In summation we need to take a
look at the policing of food trucks, beef up our monitoring of tobacco shops, and take
whatever measures we can to bring Rhode Island and New England customers into
Providence to spend their money and help boost our economy out of this current struggle.
Regards,
Grant Senne