TEMPE, Ariz. – What if buying your morning coffee or grabbing dinner could win you prizes? Downtown Tempe’s new “Sidewalk Summer” initiative is turning your shopping trips into a rewards game to help local businesses thrive through the heat.
Local perspective:
“Nobody wants to go out when it’s 120 degrees, so business does drop in Phoenix drastically during the summer,” said Tim Richardson, chef and owner of Foch Cafe & Bistro.
It is a challenge Valley businesses know all too well, but for downtown Tempe, the heat is only half the battle, as students head home and streets face ongoing construction.
“The construction is infrastructure that’s very much needed, but it has hurt drastically, obviously. When roads are closed, people don’t want to try and come down to an area where they can’t drive down and find easy parking,” Richardson said.
What we know:
To fight the summer slump, the city is launching a free rewards program to incentivize shoppers and boost foot traffic.
“You’re able to visit the businesses in downtown Tempe, collect points, redeem them for prizes,” said Chelsey Velasquez with the Downtown Tempe Authority.
What you can do:
Participating in the rewards program is easy. All you have to do is find one of the QR codes that are all around downtown Tempe, scan it with your phone camera and it will take you directly to a link. On that link, it will give you an option of all the participating shops and restaurants. You just find the one you’re at and hit “collect points.”
“Hopefully it will entice people to go around the road construction and still come down here if they can get a better deal,” Richardson said.
Dig deeper:
You earn 10 points at every stop. Prizes range from stickers and T-shirts to gift cards, and the participating businesses are dishing out deals of their own.
“We’ve had a couple of people come in and say, Oh, we can just get some free Beignets just for buying a coffee? Yes 100 percent!” Richardson said.
Why you should care:
Giving you a reason to brave the heat and the barricades.
“The streets are gonna be closed for a little bit of time during the summer, but the sidewalks are open and so are the businesses,” Velasquez said.
The Source: Information in this report was gathered from a spokesperson with Downtown Tempe Authority and the chef and owner of Foch Cafe & Bistro.
