Local restaurants, stores sweat through the heat

After sweating through a week-long heat wave that vibrated through most of the nation, several local businesses remained unaffected while others received minimal financial damage.\nBloomington temperatures peaked around 115 degrees Fahrenheit Monday, according to various heat index scales, causing some Bloomington residents to seek air conditioned shelters throughout most of the last seven to ten days. Unlike the visible financial destruction of a community committed by hurricane waters, tornado air, hail ice or flash floods, heat waves often prevent patrons from perusing the wares found within local merchants throughout town.\n"We haven't had the patio opened for about one week. During the middle of the day there has been no one out there and our servers would stay here for three or four hours with no tables. We finally closed the outside down because of no business," said Ashleigh Warner, promotions manager at Scotty's Brewhouse, 302 N. Walnut St. \n"The heat has given us more business inside, although during the summer a lot of our customers like to eat outside. I noticed a sales slump this weekend -- the heat was so intense a lot of people didn't want to go out on Friday and Saturday night. There weren't very many people out on the streets."\nBloomington resident Jim Cushing, three-decade manager of the Discount Den, 514 E. Kirkwood Ave., said he believed Hoosiers were hiding out in the air conditioned mall or the library instead of walking up a sweat along fifth street, Bloomington's number one foot-traffic hotspot.\n"We have sold less fifty-cent fountain drinks and more water, but business has been pretty much the same," he said. "My idea of perfect weather is the same as San Diego -- sunny and 82 degrees. We will have single serve ice cream next week: ice cream sandwiches, drumsticks and popsicles."\nBloomington resident Tosha Daugherty, communications director for the Bloomington Convention and Visitor Bureau at 2855 N. Walnut St., said Bloomington can still be enjoyable despite day long waves of intense heat. \n"We do have the state's largest lake in Lake Monroe, which is always a big draw in hot weather for swimming or on boats. We also have a lot of air conditioned attractions like the tasting rooms in local wineries," she said. "We have lots of great ice cream shops and local restaurants serve hot day food like the fabulous salad bar and cold sandwich selection at the Encore Café. Any downtown restaurant is also great anytime of the year and the city has an array of ethnic options."\nBloomington resident Leslie Allen, a camp store attendant at the Lake Monroe Boat Rental shop, said hot days are a good time to rent a watercraft to tour the manmade waterway. She said the heat hasn't affected lake business for the better or worse since an otherwise fun time can be enjoyed by all in lake water during most months of the year.\n"Lake Monroe is fun when it's hot -- you want to swim more and it's better swimming. The lake is beautiful and it's fun," she said. "Make sure you take plenty to drink on the boat. Anything you would do outside, make sure you drink plenty of water and sun block is always a good idea ... There's plenty of space out here and the water is clean. If you were in a pool you would be kind of confined -- in a boat you can go anywhere"