New Year’s resolutions are a staple of January every year, but what do they entail for businesses? Dry January is a movement that has been in practice for a few years now. It involves starting off the year sober. Dry January is a good thing for many, as it provides a unified group of people to support those struggling with alcohol addictions. However, this is only one side of the coin, as it has many negative impacts on bars and restaurants.
Most bars and restaurants rely on alcohol sales for the majority of their profit with food sales bringing in little or no money. Oscar Santana, the head manager for local Mexican restaurant Laredos Bar & Grill, explained, “We often make only a few bucks on our entrees, but drinks are where the real money is. That’s why we don’t do well in January.”
Maddi Davis, a server at the same establishment stated “I hate working in January. The weather’s bad, the money’s worse, and the people are just horrible. Some of my regulars are really heavy drinkers and they don’t feel the greatest in the week or two after the New Year.”
Servers and part-time workers truly feel the effects of dry January. Drink sales can compose up to 50 percent of a customer’s bill. Without the extra money from alcohol sales, the employees that get paid from drink sales, specifically bartenders, make much less in January.
Gyms also make a marginally larger profit in the first few months of the year than in the later months. Many people set their resolution to start going to the gym and “get in shape” which leads to a massive increase in membership sales for gyms. Jeremy Hudgin, A local gym goer has been working out at the Onelife gym in Dawsonville since June of 2024. He lamented, “I go to the gym three times a week during the regular months off but I don’t go in January because of the new people. I can never find an open bench to use, or any squat rack, or any free weight, or any machines.”
The exodus of people from living their regular lives to going to the gym grants the gyms a large amount of money while also overcrowding them. The wave of people that begin to frequent the gym in January can make a significant difference in experience for the gym regulars. This creates a scarcity of weight-lifting stations and weights themselves.
New Year’s resolutions, while good for many, can be detrimental to others. For this new year, where your money goes might be at the back of your mind, but to gym owners or service employees, it’s everything.
