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But after shoppers came to Tanger and Rockvale outlets in droves in the pre-dawn hours of Black Friday, clogging Route 30 with bumper-to-bumper traffic, his mood brightened.
"I'm little less cautious and a lot more optimistic," said Simmons, Tanger's general manager. "It seems as though people have found their stride, and they're spending again."
Buoyed by the Black Friday turnout, Simmons and other merchants here were hopeful Friday that this holiday season brings them more business than did 2008's.
National forecasts are split, calling for sales to be either about 1 percent up or 1 percent down from last year's anemic season, when the economy was melting down.
If either forecast proves correct, it will be an improvement over the 3.4 percent dip in sales during the '08 shopping season.
In other words, progress is a relative term; nobody is saying the boom times are back.
"Although this was a strong day, people are real tight with their money," observed Russ Colton, store manager of the Ephrata Walmart. "People are being careful about what they spend their money on."
"This day is always busy," said Doug McComas, store manager at Target. "The first week of December is when you really see the trend."
While Park City Center's parking lot was filled by early morning, as it usually is on Black Friday, general manager Rachel Gallagher agreed that it's hard to predict how the season will unfold based on one day of business.
"The shopping bags are definitely full. How much people are spending on each bag is impossible to measure," she said.
"What will be interesting is, how long does this uptick in spending last?" said David Ober, Rockvale general partner.
Black Friday, the nickname for the day after Thanksgiving, is the traditional kickoff of the holiday shopping season. It's one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Toys, electronics, clothing and jewelry generally are big sellers. Merchants try to stoke those sales by offering big discounts, giveaways and extended hours.
The outlets, for instance, opened at midnight on Black Friday for the fourth straight year. Toys "R" Us opened at midnight, too. Park City stores began opening at 4 a.m.
Long lines of shoppers were outside many stores across the county, waiting for them to open at their special times.
Boscov's, for instance, had 700 people waiting for its 5 a.m. opening, attracted by an array of early bird discounts and giveaways, said Linda Rakowski, human resources manager.
"We're having a great day. It's pretty incredible," she said. "There isn't a parking space to be found. The Black Friday shoppers are out in swarms."
Rakowski believed the shoppers were feeling more optimistic than last season, an attitude that generally sparks increased spending.
"The mood is very festive, very upbeat," she said. "People seem much more happy than last year, much more hopeful. … I think we're going to have an absolutely fantastic season."
The line at Target began forming about midnight Thursday, swelling to more than 1,000 by the store's 5 a.m. opening, McComas said.
Giveaways, doorbuster deals on cameras, TVs and GPS units and a free $10 gift card for a $100 purchase by noon had shoppers camping out "all the way around the building into the cornfield" next door, he said.
The 24-hour Ephrata Walmart had shoppers beginning to get in line at 11 p.m. Thursday for the specials to be unveiled at 5 a.m. on Black Friday, Colton said.
By then, "a couple thousand" shoppers were gathered around the departments with the predawn deals. Discounted laptop computers and televisions were the hottest draws.
"It was unbelievable," Colton said.
Rockvale's Ober said this year's "Midnight Madness" was the busiest since the first, with merchants seeing sales up as much as 23 percent over Black Friday '08.
"A lot of that was clearly contingent on how deep a discount was offered," Ober said.
For the season overall, he expected sales to be "better than last year, but not at the levels of two or four years ago."
Simmons said his mall got off to a strong start in the wee hours of Friday morning, with traffic and sales both exceeding 2008 levels. For some stores, sales were ahead by double-digit margins.
"The bottom line is, will this fervor continue? … We'll have to wait and see," he said.
