AMHERST -- The seats stand unfilled; the textbooks, unsold; the beer, undrunk, secure in its kegs.

It is spring break, and Amherst is in the midst of a week-long exhalation.

Thousands of students who last week flooded the town's streets have been absent since the weekend, their vacation plans set and their dorms vacated. Lines at local businesses have dwindled. Buses usually packed during rush hours now give riders the pick of their window seats. And North Face jackets have all but vanished from the town's streetscapes, even as March continues to hold the Pioneer Valley in a stubborn chill.

Bob Ricard, a 26-year resident of the town, was doing some heavy reading at Rao's Coffee, poring through a study of New Orleans hospital care in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The absence of students, he said, is a mixed blessing.

"Obviously this is nice when they're gone, but all these things wouldn't be here if they weren't here either. You wouldn't have all these nice restaurants that are highly competitive," Ricard said. "The nine months a year is great, and there's a nice respite every once in a while."

It's a change that proved attractive to Lori Bindig, a 2009 doctoral graduate from UMass Amherst. Now a professor at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, Binding and her partner had timed their visit to Amherst to avoid the student rush.

"We like to come up on breaks because there's just a little bit more space," Bindig said, standing amid the shelving at Amherst Books. "You can actually get a table at Antonio's."

Antonio's, the local favorite whose slices are vehicles for buffalo chicken, tortellini and other adventurous toppings, is running a skeleton staff this week, a supervisor said. The usual 1 a.m. scrum and its accompanying cries of "Hot cheese up front!" are on hiatus; the store has temporarily suspended its Friday night $1 cheese pizza promotion, immensely popular with the post-bars crowd.

A decrease in trade was a common thread for many Amherst businesses. Some, like Rao's Coffee, stay busy with long-time residents. Others, like the Black Sheep cafe, find their balance books taking a hit.

Lazarus White, a manager at the Black Sheep, said schools like UMass and Hampshire College make up the bulk of the cafe's catering business. And with those institutions on break, orders have plummeted from 50 to 100 during a normal week to, on Thursday, a solitary cake.

"It's huge," White said. "Our catering orders almost completely drop off the map."

The demographic shift does have some perks, White said, with the absence of students making downtown Amherst a more inviting place for older residents.

"We had a bluegrass jam last night. It was more popular last night than it had been, maybe, I've ever seen it," he said.

At Russell's Liquors, the shelves were fully stocked and the aisles clear Thursday afternoon. Manager Lindsey Broderick, behind the counter in the empty store, said school breaks change what sells, with wine bottles replacing thirty racks of beer as the store's hot item.

"You're not going to be selling handles of liquor, you're not going to be selling the Rubinoff, things like that," Broderick said.

UMass junior Rabeb Layouni traded vacation for chemistry research after her spring break plans fell through, and had a hefty textbook splayed out on a Rao's table.

"For someone who stayed here during winter break this is a whole lot better. I feel there are more people around," Layouni said. "You can get work done. I like it, it's not that bad."

That night the Amherst bars were, by their standards, sedate. A young crowd staked out tables and bar stools at the High Horse, clustered in conversation or shooting pool. McMurphy's, popular with the UMass contingent, was empty at 9:30 p.m. At Stackers, a sports bar in the town center, about 20 people talked over drinks, with cheers and groans punctuating the dramatic final seconds of a March Madness game broadcast on flatscreen televisions.

At 9 p.m. Dave Rohde was one of two patrons at the Spoke, a bicycle-themed dive bar at the corner of East Pleasant and Triangle streets. An Amherst native and landlord in Pelham, he was catching up with the bartender, an old friend; Rohde said he had managed the bar "a long time ago."

Outside he lit a cigarette and glanced down East Pleasant Street at the hulking, unfinished skeleton of Kendrick Place, the 54,000 square foot apartment building slated to open for the next school year.

"Everything's changing," Rohde said. "I look at that building right there -- it's ridiculous."