Businesses report strong Motorcycle Week sales despite 'soft' crowds

It was busy at the Center Harbor Diner during Motorcycle Week. Heather Taylor, who has served guests there for 13 years, said she took lots of orders for biscuits with sausage gravy, and eggs with bacon on the side.

“It was another great one,” Taylor said. “People were happy, it was fun,” and similar to the previous rally weeks she’s worked.

Many businesses reported having a similarly good week, despite the fact crowds were smaller than typical. The chief organizer of the event said attendance was depressed by political animosity which kept Canadians from crossing the border, as well as sporadic storms that deterred day trippers.

Even so, a lower-than-average Motorcycle Week was still a boon to business, many reported.

Easy crowds

At the diner, Taylor said she’s come to expect the same faces each Motorcycle Week, people who arrive for the rally and enjoy starting their day with one of the diner’s plates in front of them.

“They come from all over, different parts of the country, some from Canada,” Taylor said. “Bikers love biscuits and gravy. We sell the most biscuits and gravy during Bike Week, and bacon and eggs. They are an easy crowd to feed.”

She said they come to Motorcycle Week for “the camaraderie, the fun, the tradition, and the bikes, obviously,” and they keep coming to the diner for “our breakfast, of course. They’ve been loyal to us the whole time, they get to know the people who’ve worked here for years, the same faces, we’ve become friends.”

It was also a good week to be in the ice cream business.

Bailey’s Bubble in Wolfeboro was “pretty busy,” said manager Curtis Cloos. “Lots of bikers coming by, we’re usually pretty busy this time of year anyway.”

Cloos said the motorcycling crowd likes milkshakes and frappes more than the typical ice cream eater, an observation shared by Mackenzie Keenan, manager at Jordan’s Ice Creamery in Belmont.

Keenan, reached in the middle of last week, said they’ve had plenty of customers even on days when the weather was dicey.

“People are keeping their spirits high and coming out and making the best of their week,” Keenan said. “We love seeing the bikes go by and pull into the parking lot.”

In addition to shakes and frappes, Keenan said the Motorcycle Week crowd also goes for large dishes, such as their “belly buster.” “They either go big or go home, they get our bigger sundaes.”

And at Happy Cow Ice Cream Shop in Laconia, three-year-veteran scooper Hayleigh Greenwood said the week was “busy, but a good outcome.”

By Greenwood’s measure, motorcyclists preferred to order chocolate-and-vanilla soft serve twists — but they also had a significant number of non-biker customers.

“It was a lot of motorcyclists and families, all very nice and well mannered,” Greenwood said.

At Johnson’s Seafood and Steak in New Durham, front-of-house manager Alexis Lyle said the business did “pretty well,” with busy mornings, especially when the afternoon forecast was fair.

She said the week was “steady."

"I feel like it hasn’t been as busy this year as previous years,” which she attributed to the weather, as well as to the reopening of the Hawg’s Pen Cafe, a biker-themed bar in Farmington that was closed during 2024’s rally.

Ryan Cardella, of East Coast Flightcraft, manages the Winnipesaukee Pier, which is located in the beating heart of Laconia Motorcycle Week: Weirs Beach.

Businesses on the pier had a good week, Cardella said, with DOX on Winnipesuakee offering its full menu and live music. Boat rentals were “strong,” he said, which was unusual for Motorcycle Week, and might have been the result of this year’s rally happening later in June than it typically does. The Off the Rails Restaurant had a “banner year” he said, reflecting a revamped menu, increased social media marketing and better music.

“Overall, it was a good Motorcycle Week for us,” Cardella said.

Soft crowds

Charlie St. Clair, executive director of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association, said this year’s rally, the 102nd running, “was soft, softer than it’s been in the past few years.”

It’s challenging to estimate total attendance, because there’s no ticket needed to attend the rally, some people come for a day or some for the entire event, and there are happenings in Weirs Beach, Loudon and in Meredith — someone could visit one location, or all three.

St. Clair bases his estimates on observed crowd sizes at various locations, as well as traffic counts and attendance figures at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.

“Last year, it was right around 300,000,” St. Clair said, figuring this year’s likely drew 225,000.

“It was a soft year, but we expected that. Daytona was down, we expect Sturgis to be down,” St. Clair said, referring to the other two major motorcycle rallies in Florida and South Dakota.

He said the reason for the decline is largely due to international visitors deciding to steer clear of the states.

Previous reporting has found state parks in New Hampshire have seen reservations placed by Canadian visitors drop by more than 70% this year, presumably in response to hostile rhetoric from President Donald Trump. But the rally typically attracts people from Europe and Australia as well, St. Clair said.

“Around the world, there are governments that issue warnings against travel to the U.S. now,” St. Clair said, noting losing such visitation would hurt the Lakes Region. “The further somebody comes to get to Laconia, the more they spend.” St. Clair serves Laconia as a Democrat in the Statehouse.

On the other end of the spectrum are the day trippers, people who come from near and who stay for just a day or the afternoon. These visitors can help fill Lakeside Avenue, but they don’t tend to spend as much while they’re there — and they’re more likely to chicken out if there’s a chance for rain.

“Don’t get me wrong, we love our day trippers, but day trippers are much more affected by the weather,” St. Clair said.

Though turnout was on the low side of typical, St. Clair wasn’t worried. Local businesses seemed to do good numbers regardless, and visiting vendors anticipated such a week and bought their stock accordingly.

In the final accounting, St. Clair said, the best parts of Motorcycle Week can’t be measured by dollars and cents.

“It’s just seeing everybody, seeing like-minded people that love motorcycling,” St. Clair said. Some are faces he only sees during this one annual rally, but the intervening time fades away when he sees them again. “It’s like a family reunion, but with a good family. I certainly love this family.”

And that’s why it causes him so much pain when that family loses someone.

“We had a number of fatalities this year,” St. Clair said, and he grieves for those who came to enjoy themselves and instead met their death. At least two were reported during the rally, and St. Clair said he heard of serious accidents involving people who were en route.

“It’s very painful, very, very painful. It’s the bane of my life for Motorcycle Week,” St. Clair said. “I can think of fatalities going back years, they never leave my mind. We try to mitigate it as much as possible, but it’s tough.”