During the school year, Marlborough’s neighboring shopping street, Larchmont, is packed with students. In the mornings, students flock to Clark Street to pick up a matcha latte and Wine and Cheese after school for an afternoon sandwich.
While it’s a popular strip, Larchmont has recently become more expensive — $10 for a smoothie or $16 for a bagel and cream cheese. But Sweetfin, the popular after-school spot, now offers a 25% discount for Marlborough students with their student ID. Once $16, a Sweetfin bowl is now $12 for students.
Another popular spot on is Jeni’s Ice Cream, which is widely known for their diverse flavors. General Manager Melvin Payne said every day, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., the majority of customers were students, highlighting the popularity of the spot for high schoolers.
“We have done collaborations with schools in the past, not for discounts, but to raise money,” Payne said. “We did a collaboration with Larchmont Charter.”
The event was an ice cream social with all Larchmont Charter students, and 25% of the proceeds were donated back to the school. Payne described the collaboration as “wildly successful” with a line reaching down the block. As for discounts, however, Payne said that they are a “double edged sword” because they could be beneficial in bringing in customers, but because they had such a “high-end product,” a discount could be taken advantage of and potentially impact their business negatively.
Kreation on Larchmont is another hot-spot for Marlborough students, as it’s known for its delicious smoothies and smoothie bowls. Kreation’s Larchmont Store Manager Kevin Alvarez, described people coming into the store daily.
“When school is in session, almost every day our customers are primarily students from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez has considered offering discounts to students and said that they could definitely do that, because another Kreation spot near a middle and high school offers 10% to 20% off of their orders if they carry their student IDs.
“We were actually planning on doing that for the Larchmont location, but we started seeing a very big decrease in students walking in during the summer,” Alvarez said. “However, we have been seeing a lot of students coming in. Definitely something to look into.”
Alvarez said that their business would most definitely be positively impacted if they provided a discount to students, as they now have students coming in almost twice a day.
