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From a 73-year-old saloon to a brand-new pet care facility, small businesses across the country are feeling the pressure and loss of income that come with the orders to shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
So are brides-to-be, as many are now scrambling to figure out how to cope with changing their wedding plans and dates.
What should be an exciting time of year for many has become a whirlwind of daily stress about an unknown future.
Small business pressures
Julie Arthur had been working seven days a week at the Rainbow Saloon in Roy, Utah, which she has owned since 1998. But when she shut her doors on March 18 because of the state’s stay-at-home orders, she bid her loyal customers, whom she called “a family,” goodbye for now.
Since then, two of her customers have committed suicide, she said. She’s worried about the rest of them, as they came to the bar daily because, as she put it, “they had nowhere to go.”
“I’ve cried every single solitary day” since closing her doors to the public, Arthur said last week.
She said her customers, ranging in ages from 21 to 90, come to the Rainbow Saloon “to celebrate, to grieve, to escape reality for a minute, unwind after work, to relax … It is like ‘Cheers.’ A lot of people that come in don’t even drink. They come for the companionship. A lot of people don’t have family and we are their family.”
Arthur and her husband, Terry Strickland, met while working at the bar together prior to buying it in 1998, and she knows many others who met their spouses there. On an average Thursday, Friday or Saturday, about 100 to 125 customers came in per day, Arthur estimated.
Sometimes, the most unlikely person would come in, just needing a listening ear.
“I had an elderly gentleman several years ago that went and sat by himself upstairs and ordered a Coke,” Arthur said. “Every time I went to check on him, he was extremely rude. After about an hour, he started to cry and said he had just lost his wife and had nowhere to go. I sat and cried with him.”
Now those lonely people may not have anyone to lean on.
Add that stress to the fact that she has lost income for the past month, and she has no idea how she will pay the bills. Monthly rent for the saloon is $3,000, and the power bill is typically at least $1,000 per month. She is still awaiting her family’s stimulus checks, but she said she owes taxes so all that money will go toward paying taxes and bills.
“It’s just been so stressful,” Arthur said. “We’re a small business, so we just kind of lived day to day before then. It’s not like we’re well-off or anything.”
She said the unknown is scary right now, since she and her husband and daughter, Brittni Strickland, all work at the Rainbow Saloon, so they do not currently have any source of income.
“And this typically is our busiest time of year,” Arthur explained. “St. Patrick’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year, and then, you know, your patio is open and people are getting out in the spring, so this is one of the times of the year where you look forward to that extra income to help make it through the rest of the year.”
Arthur is trying to stay afloat by offering meals for curbside pickup, but her grill and kitchen are not set up for large orders, so she has not been able to offer quick service.
“We’re trying to do takeout,” she said. “The problem is our fryer is a two-basket fryer and our grill is maybe 2 feet by 2 feet, so we’re just not designed that way. People are calling, but then there’s like a two-hour wait for steak, and people don’t want to wait that long.”
The saloon is a sit-down restaurant designed to be a place to relax and enjoy a drink while the food is being cooked, she said before adding that the majority of their income comes from tips, but many people do not tip on to-go orders.
The Rainbow Saloon has been in business since 1947, and Arthur hopes it will continue to be open after the pandemic. But, of course, nothing is certain.
“There’s a lot of restaurant grants out there,” she said. “I’ve applied for everything possible that I can, so I keep hoping.”
She had five employees before the shutdown, and now she is down to one part-time employee. One of her dedicated employees is autistic, and his routine has now been turned upside-down, so she worries about him, too.
“He’s worked for us for seven years, and he rides his bike six-and-a-half miles each way, seven days a week,” Arthur said. “In seven years, he’s never missed a day of work. When we said we had to close, he was sobbing.”
She said on top of the business’s financial struggles, she wants to help others. The Rainbow Saloon commonly helps the community with fundraisers, but the current situation makes it impossible to continue that contribution.
“I don’t know how to solve this one,” she said.
Terrible Timing
In Charleston, South Carolina, Mark and Melody McLean are dealing with a different situation with their brand-new dog daycare and pet grooming business. They quit their well-paying jobs in August 2019 and moved in September from Parkersburg, West Virginia, to Charleston to open their dream business, a pet care facility.
“We both have always had a love and passion for dogs — our personal dogs, Jasmine, Jake and Annie, as well as volunteering for local humane societies and rescue groups — and we wanted to make a living working with them,” McLean said of he and his wife.
McLean had selected the March 17 opening date as a tribute to his father, who died of cancer on that day 25 years ago. They opened just a week prior to the Charleston city-wide mandated closure.
“It’s terrible timing,” Mark McLean said. “I guess that’s what it boils down to. If we had been a month later starting, we could have not hired the employees, we could have put off opening the business, but we really kind of faced a decision.”
The business, called The Island Pawplex, opened back up on Thursday, April 9, after the city-wide shutdown ended. A state-issued order considers pet services essential, McLean said. So while business has been trickling in, they missed what would have normally been a spring break boom.
“It just kind of put us in a tough spot,” he said. “We kind of had an expectation that we were going to hit a spring break rush pretty soon after we opened. Obviously, we missed out on that. So the hope at this point is that we hit a summer rush, assuming everything is back to normal.”
He said on top of missing out on business, they may not qualify for federal assistance because they have not been in business long enough.
He said they did find out they qualify for $2,000 because he and his wife were considered full-time employees before they opened the business. That $2,000 will cover just four days of expenses.
“And because we had good jobs in 2018 and 2019, we won’t get the personal stimulus checks,” he added. “We are currently waiting to hear back about the ‘forgivable advance’ that comes with an EIDL loan, which is up to $10,000, but we’re not expecting to get the full amount, if we get anything at all.”
Even though the situation is not ideal, McLean loves what he does and is hopeful for the future. He said they’ve been hosting “Yappy Hour Specials” and planning pool parties for the dogs in the summer.
The McLeans do not have kids, so their dogs are their “children.” He describes their goofy lab-corgi mix Annie as “chunky” and “a big ball of fluff.” Their other beloved dog, Jake, is a blue heeler/beagle mix.
“We took a giant leap of faith to do this,” McLean said. “But we are living our dream, running a dog daycare in Charleston, South Carolina, so things could definitely be worse. And we know that, in the long run, things will almost certainly work out.”
Even with that optimism in mind, however, he knows a lot of businesses will not be lucky enough to reopen.
“I can’t imagine what that feeling is like,” he said. “and I hope I don’t get to that point.”
Brides adjusting to new plans
Planning a wedding can be an exhilarating time, but when an unexpected pandemic appears out of nowhere, changing wedding plans at the last minute is a huge stressor for many brides.
Allyson Whorton and Andrew Varlas have been engaged since October 2018, and they are ready to take the next step.
“We’ve been engaged long enough,” Whorton said with a laugh.
The Wheeling, West Virginia couple scheduled their wedding for June 6 of this year, originally inviting more than 200 people, but because the pandemic and stay-at-home orders have been in place, they have had to adjust their plans.
“We knew we were going to get married on that date, no matter what,” Whorton said. “We decided it was probably best and safest to do the ceremony with our immediate family, the officiant and our bridal party.”
They are still going to get married at their original venue, which is an outdoor park with a shelter. She said it’s been a difficult adjustment, but she has come to accept the change.
“It was kind of tough at first,” she said. “I was kind of in denial about it — like ‘That’s not going to happen.’ I mean, who decides on a date, and then there’s a pandemic?”
The couple has since postponed their reception to a future date.
Still, because of the many business shutdowns, her wedding ring is stuck in a warehouse somewhere, so she will be wearing her grandmother’s wedding band for the ceremony. And, through it all, her vendors have been happy to work with her to either refund or offer their services at no extra charge.
Whorton noted that through it all, they are trying to be positive about the whole situation.
“We’re kind of saving money on this, in the long run,” she said. “And we get to keep our original date.”
Hundreds of miles northwest, in Alpena, Mich., Shannon LaHaie pressed the enter button on her keyboard on Thursday with a heavy heart. The post instantly appeared, letting her wedding guests know that her wedding has been officially canceled.
“I can’t believe this timing,” she said.
LaHaie and her fiance, Colten Roeske, have been together for eight years and engaged for three of them.
“It’s almost ironic that this is happening because for years we’ve been saying, ‘We’ll do it next year, we’ll do it next year,’ so we haven’t really been in a rush,” LaHaie said. “We bought a house first, and wanted to get that done, and get settled … We’ve chosen to wait all this time, and now that it’s not our decision to wait, I’m like, not having it.”
In the fall, they picked the date of May 23, 2020. Now, they have to pick another one.
“Right when we got the stay-at-home order, I started to initially panic a lot,” LaHaie said, referring to the stay-at-home order Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued on March 23. “I was getting really emotional, and I had to tell myself ‘All you can do is wait.’”
She finally decided on Thursday that she had to make the call. She said all her vendors were very helpful and understanding.
“I was lucky because a lot of our vendors are people that I know,” LaHaie explained before adding, “I’m feeling disappointed. I just can’t believe it … I mean, obviously there are worse things happening right now besides weddings getting canceled. But it’s hard … It just feels disappointing. Who does this happen to?”
Many of her relatives are out of state, so they wanted to postpone the entire ceremony and reception until a later time when it could be fun for everyone. They had planned Memorial Day weekend because everyone could go camping, relax and enjoy the long weekend together.
She now anticipates that they will probably reschedule until next year to keep the Memorial Day relaxation theme in mind. Even so, she asserted that more than just the wedding date, knowing you’re marrying the right partner is the most important thing.
“As a note to other brides, have faith in your relationship,” LaHaie said. “It’s just another trial that you have to overcome.
“Be patient,” she said, “and your time will come.”
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
