Getting into the shopping spirit
Stacey Taylor, top left, of Ellwood City; her sister-in-law, Amy Taylor, top center, and her mother-in-law, Kathy Taylor of Syracuse, N.Y., took a break from shopping at the Washington Crown Center in North Franklin Township to have lunch before heading to Robinson Township for more shopping Friday afternoon. Patty Ondash of Washington, left, doesn’t enjoy Black Friday shopping, but she did travel to Washington Crown Center to have her hair done. Hannah Porter, 9, took a break from shopping with her aunt, Shelly Armstrong, and cousin, Isabella Armstrong, 13, to devour a piece of pizza.
Hannah Porter, 9, took a break from shopping with her aunt, Shelly Armstrong, and cousin, Isabella Armstrong, 13, to devour a piece of pizza.
Shelly Armstrong of Washington didn’t start her shopping with her daughter, Isabella Armstrong, 13 and niece, Hannah Porter,9, until late Friday morning at the Washington Crown Center in North Franklin Township.
Patty Ondash of Washington isn’t much for shopping on Black Friday but was at the mall to have her hair done Friday afternoon at the Washington Crown Center in North Franklin Township.
It was Black Friday, but for Patty Ondash, it was a good hair day, nothing more.
“I came in for one thing – to get my hair done. I saw all this and said, ‘This was a big mistake!!!'”
Yes, three exclamation points. Ondash already was not a Black Friday devotee, and after her hirsute pursuit at Washington Crown Center, she will likely spend the day after Thanksgiving in subsequent years relaxing on her Washington couch.
The Friday afternoon crowd wasn’t overly frenzied at the North Franklin Township center, but it engulfed Ondash – and surely others. This is the biggest retail day of the year nationwide, and shoppers locally were mall-hopping more than rushing home with their treasures. They bought, browsed and bummed around.
“We’re going to Robinson next,” said Shelly Armstrong of Washington, pausing in the Crown Center food court during a shopping spree with her daughter, Isabella, 13, and niece, Hannah Porter, 9.
Watching Hannah chomp on a pizza slice twice the size of her head, Shelly said Crown Center was their first stop and they didn’t arrive until noon. She added they weren’t white-hot Black Friday shoppers.
“There’s nothing that we need that badly,” she said. “We’re out for fun, for a girls’ day out.”
Their Black Friday experience two years ago wasn’t fun, Armstrong said. They began their Tanger Outlets quest around midnight and ended up in auto gridlock backed onto Interstate 79.
“We’ll never do that again,” Shelly said.
Three Taylors came from Ellwood City, hitting the stores at Crown Center. “We’re late bloomers. We started at 8:30 this morning,” quipped Stacey Taylor.
She was with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Kathy and Amy Taylor – mother and daughter from Syracuse, N.Y.
“We usually went at midnight, but we learned from the experience,” said Amy, an alumna of California University of Pennsylvania, who said the three also like to shop online. “Everyone seems to be polite here. No hostile people. Tanger Outlets are next.”
Tanger, which opened for business at 10 p.m. Thanksgiving and closed late Friday, was its frenetic Black Friday self. The South Strabane Township mall again provided shuttles for customers who had to park at The Meadows Racetrack & Casino, which accommodated overflow vehicles.
Traffic subsided in the Tanger lots by mid-afternoon, but leaving was still tedious.
“It’s crazy busy,” said Sandy Mauser of North Stabane Township, who works at the tourism information desk in the food court. “To me, throughout the day, this has been busier than past Black Fridays.”
So, the shopping spirit again prevailed. It even enveloped Ondash, who otherwise was semi-freaked out by her Crown Center experience,
“I wasn’t intending to do this, but I got a blanket for my couch,” she said. “I needed it.”