Tom Jones is no stranger to the restaurant industry. He and his business partner, Gary Fassl, have owned and operated Millhouse Steakhouse in Brunswick for the past decade.
But the two were taken by surprise back in 2008. That’s when sales at the popular restaurant, inside the Holiday Inn Express at 124 Glynco Parkway in Brunswick, became erratic.
“Then one day we saw that our business was down by 40 percent. We had just lost 40 percent of our business in a month. It was scary,” he said.
That was the beginning of the period known as the Great Recession, a time where dark clouds hovered over the national economy. Stock values plummeted, homes were foreclosed upon, unemployment soared and businesses closed their doors.
Jones concedes that it was a trying time.
“It was a downward spiral. Restaurants are one of the first to see it. When people lose their extra $20 a week, they stop going out to eat,” he said. “But we made some changes to our menu. We dropped prices and made things more affordable. Eventually, we started to see an uptick.”
That was about two years ago, when the economy first began to right itself. Jones started to see positive movement in the industry, so much so that he started to look for new opportunities.
“It started to be pretty consistent. Then we saw that properties had become available,” he said. “We had always liked Spanky’s and Tokoyo Joe’s so we had a chance to get a good deal on it. It seemed like a good time and it seemed to be a good investment.”
Jones and Fassl recently opened the doors of Copper Pig in Brunswick at that location – 704 Mall Blvd., Brunswick. But first they had to get the building ready and then find the employees to staff the business.
“We interviewed over 1,000 people and ended up with 111 to get us open. We will probably end up with around 70 employees once we get settled in,” he said.
The Copper Pig is just one of many new businesses that has opened recently, bringing new jobs to Glynn County after the long, dismal recession. In addition to the restaurant, several other companies have announced plans to open or to expand.
GulfStream revealed that it would be investing $26 million and adding 100 jobs to support an expansion.
On Tuesday, Sam’s Club announced its intention to construct a $40 million store with 175 new jobs. It will be part of the larger Canal Crossing shopping complex which, according to its developer John Callaway, will be a $124 million investment.
Eventually, the complex and stores within it are expected to employ roughly 500 people.
These are just a few of the largest projects planned for the area. Many others – like the Mellow Mushroom under construction in the St. Simons Island Village – are also in the works.
The job growth is something that Don Mathews, economic professor at the College of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick, is excited to see. He hopes that the new opportunities will help put a dent in the local unemployment rate – 8.4 percent for Glynn County and 8.6 percent for Brunswick.
“Unemployment here is falling, but it’s still quite high, especially compared to the U.S. as a whole,” Mathews said. “The new projects, including their construction, will help the job situation. They should draw some people back into the labor force as well as increase employment.
“But for substantive improvement we’re going to need expansion in industries other than retail, such as business services, manufacturing, transportation and logistics.”
That’s not to say he’s pessimistic about the current growth. But Mathews notes that he would like to see more home grown firms in the mix.
“The new firms and expanding firms (are) all very good news, of course. Firms seek opportunities to grow. It’s a very good sign for us that t
The Brunswick News
LINDSEY ADKISON