LORDSTOWN — “We’ve had worse days, but not much worse,” said Lordstown Mayor Arno Hill while passing through the Speed Check on Tod Avenue SW.

Hill said the mood at the General Motors plant was “solemn” on Wednesday morning, but customers in the gas station that afternoon were in relatively good spirits.

Still, Yasser Alsadi, who has owned Speed Check since 2004, is expecting as much as a 40 percent drop in business with the idling of the car plant.

“When I came in, GM had 7,000 or 8,000 people at that time. Since then, well, you do the math,” said Alsadi.

Alsadi said his gas station took a big hit in 2016 when the third shift was cut because he lost his late-night and early morning customers. He said business has been declining ever since.

The gas station is open until 11 p.m., but Alsadi is now considering closing earlier since little traffic passes through at night.

“I don’t know if I will be able to keep the same hours and the same employees,” said Alsadi.

Michael Hodak, 10-year owner of the Subway restaurant in the Lordstown Plaza, is also predicting a slowdown in business for at least the next 12 months.

On Wednesday, Hodak smiled and chatted with his customers as usual — customers who frequent the Subway for the friendly environment and to talk with Hodak himself — but he said he knew people in the area would be losing discretionary money with the idling of the plant.

“Many of our neighbors will be impacted negatively,” said Hodak.

Hodak, like Alsadi, saw less business following the loss of the third, and then second, shifts.

The pair, who are friends, met to chat when Hodak came into Speed Check for a coffee.

“We look after each other,” Hodak said of the Lordstown small business owners.

Alsadi said other small businesses, like Ross Foods and Dairy Queen, were experiencing the same downturn that Speed Check and Subway saw. Hoot & Holler, a convenience store on Salt Springs Road, closed just weeks after the November announcement the plant would idle.

Alsadi and Hodak, however, intend to stick around.

“We’re just going to keep doing business the way we know how, and ride out the storm,” said Hodak, who remains hopeful General Motors will allocate a new product to the plant.

Roxanna Holton of Lordstown has been running Our Place Diner since Labor Day, she said. Business has been slow but steady, despite the loss of the second shift at General Motors and now the idling of the plant.

“I don’t know how much General Motors is affecting me,” said Holton.

She said so far, she hasn’t noticed a downturn in business.

Holton categorizes her customers as Lordstown residents, but she knows many people who live in the town also work at the plant. Her husband retired from General Motors, and her son worked third, and then second, shift at the plant. He was laid off for six months, and then brought back to work when other employees started transferring out of Lordstown, she said.

Like the other business owners, she has no intention of closing shop. Holton expects new business to come into Lordstown soon.

Mayor Hill said he anticipates TJX tentatively breaking ground in the first or second week of April, with the new power plant following later in the summer. He also remains hopeful GM will reinvest in the community.

“If I had a crystal ball I would say that we might get a product,” Hill said. “We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes (at GM), but I hope it’s positive.”

“I think we have some positive things still happening in Lordstown,” said Hodak. “Lordstown is a resilient community. They always bounce back.”

avugrincic@tribtoday.com