DAYTON, Ohio – Even on a slow weekday morning, Haitham Imam mans the grill with a smile. He’s winding down his breakfast service, but he can’t say no to one of his former regulars stopping in for an omelet.
Imam knows every customer counts, especially now that he says he barely sees enough to keep the doors of Carmen’s Deli open every day.
When the deli opened in Stratacache Tower nine years ago, Imam said was like a dream come true.
“This is not only how I feed my family. This is my love and my passion,” he said. “I built the place from scratch.”
He worked with an architect to design a space where he could interact directly with customers, cook to order, and feel like a part of the Dayton business community. For years, the lunch shift was his bread and butter.
Since the pandemic, however, Imam said there’s been a steep drop off in traffic, not just coming through his door, but throughout the downtown business district.
“The crowd is not here anymore,” he said. “They’re working from home and that’s really what’s hurting small businesses.”
Before 2020, Imam said most of his regulars came from CareSource or the Premier Health Center Tower across the street. Now those buildings house a fraction of the employees they once did and Premier Health Center is set to sell its downtown office buildingbecause of reduced tenancy.
Meanwhile, as his customer pool shrinks, Imam said his expenses are rising. He said he’s had to adjust his hours and menu so he can continue to break even and prevent waste.
“There are some items, our fresh tuna, salmon, we stopped making it because end of the day or the next day I have to throw it away,” he said.
To keep his personal finances afloat, Imam said he took on a second job at Sinclair College.
“I’m not upset that I have another job,” he said. “But we did this a long time ago. We went through two jobs, three jobs, put us through school.”
Nine years into his business, Imam thought he was done with that struggle. Now, with a changing downtown landscape, he’s found himself in need of adapting again, though he’s not sure how.
He said he’s not interested in trying to monopolize on the nightlife scene, and though he’s gotten offers to move the business to the suburbs, that’s not the kind of deli he wants to run.
“People like us who love their community, who love downtown Dayton, want to stay as much as they can,” he said.
If office work isn’t bringing the crowds it used to, Imam said he’d like to see more efforts from the city or state to bring new jobs downtown and keep the urban core alive.
“I don’t know the answer,” he said. “I come here and wonder what happened to downtown Dayton.”
