Businesses see waves of buyers, appointments before the second block in Toronto and Peel

With less than 48 hours before Toronto and the Peel region enter a second block, businesses are seeing an increase in people trying to access services before closing their doors.

Salons and other personal service businesses, such as nail spas and wax bars, signal busy weekends. On Friday, The Ten Spot beauty bar, which has locations across the city, was fully booked for their weekend within three hours.

Estelle Lombardi, a manager at the Queen St. West store location, told Star their senior staff are prepared for the surge in customers. “Since we’ve already done that, this is actually more notice than when we first closed, so we have checklists for closing at the end of (the day) tomorrow.”

A manager for Fuzz Wax Bar said they see more than double their typical customers. “On a typical weekend we see about 30 people a day,” said Leanne Donnelly, who runs a Fuzz office in Queen St. East. “Today I think we have nearly 70, a full waiting list and our sister site is also full, as are our corporate headquarters.”

Shopping malls are also preparing for an influx of shoppers during the holidays.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Oxford Properties, the management company that operates Yorkdale, Square One and Scarborough Town Center, said the malls will extend their opening hours this weekend to handle an expected increase in visitors.

Malls visitors will be able to shop from 10:00 to 21:00 in Square One and between 11:00 and 21:00 in Yorkdale and Scarborough Town Center and avoid rush hours from 13:00 to 16:00 the spokesman said.

The restaurants that run patio service also had a busier frenzy than usual on Friday nights. At the eastern end of The Stone Lion pub, manager Brian Short said there was an immediate increase in people coming to eat.

“Today we put on social media, kind of like New Year 2020 for the patio and people are starting to hang out,” Short said. “It looks like the support is there.”

He said that while his bar has a policy that allows staff to stay at home if they are not comfortable, employees have entered because it is not clear what awaits us. “The first arrest was a little less unknown, it didn’t seem like anything was right.”

His biggest concern is the staff, which is “a bit left in limbo. They’ve been closed twice now, everyone has to pay the rent, “Short said.

After this weekend, the question for many companies will be what comes next.

“I think what’s more nerve-wracking is what comes next Monday – what resources will be available to small businesses like us and our staff,” said Mariama Njai, owner of DollHouse905, a Brampton-based beauty salon.

“Will we be able to keep our doors open?”

Jenna Moon is a breaking news reporter for The Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @_jennamoon