The 34^th-annual Summer Festival has come and gone, and businesses are getting back to normal after welcoming new faces to town.

Each year, the festival is a large promotional event for Washington, and one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for the Washington-Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce, according to Catherine Glover, executive director.

“We couldn’t operate or open our doors without it,” Glover said. “If people don’t shop that weekend because of the festival, they walked by windows and will hopefully go back. We also had vendors downtown that were part of (the) festival that are local businesses in the county. It gives an opportunity for businesses to market themselves.”

Rachel Midgette, owner of Rachel K’s Bakery, said she views the festival as a way to promote her business, rather than an immediate profit-booster.

“It’s a typical Saturday with regards to sales figures. I believe our normal weekend customers may stay away due to the high volume of traffic, but I think we do get some foot traffic that offsets that loss of ‘normal’ sales,” Midgette said. “I hope that it does give us some increased exposure to people that are not our regulars, and will result in better word of mouth and more future sales.”

The No Wake Zone Grill, however, saw an immediate uptick in business.

Owner Danielle Hunnings said the increase in customers started Thursday and continued through Saturday.

Hunnings said the restaurant saw a lot of new faces visiting from out of town, and they were complimenting the town and its friendly residents.

The No Wake Zone saw some traffic from families attending graduation ceremonies throughout the county on Saturday, as well.

Caroline Mills, who works at Cottage Junkies, said the store saw an uptick in business on Friday because of the people in town for the Summer Festival. Saturday, however, was a bit slower because those potential customers were down the street attending the festival, Mills added.

“We did pretty good that weekend,” Mills said. “Saturday was slower, but still pretty normal.”