Small Businesses, Big Problems

How the small businesses of Traverse City have dealt with the pandemic at hand

by ELIZABETH PHILLIPS staff writer

Remember when you couldn’t leave your house because of a worldwide pandemic? That’s when your favorite local businesses struggled the most. One of those small businesses is Mundos, a local coffee shop with locations in Traverse City and Suttons Bay. Dan Clark, who has owned Mundos for four and a half years, never thought something like this would happen. “Things like [the pandemic] did go through my mind before. [I thought of] what could rattle us so much, such as a stock market crash, but I never thought anything like this,” Clark stated. Mundos did not have to stop conducting business, but they had to make some changes in order to stay open. During the shutdown, Mundos operated as a to-go order only business; they used DoorDash and did call-in orders, something that they had never done before. Mundos still does call-in orders, but the business has operated somewhat normally since Governor Gretchen Whitmer opened up restaurants to 50 percent capacity. “We added some more seating, so people can spread out a little more. [It’s] about 450 square feet, which equates to about 15 seats,” explained Clark, “so we’re going to continue that, and we’re going to continue to do those [to-go

Photo: E. Phillips

orders].” With all of the social distancing restrictions, Clark has missed the interaction he used to get with customers. “For me, the connection with people has changed a lot. I miss the hugs and the handshakes, and I think everyone else kind of misses that too,” Clark expresses. Even with the difficulty of masks and social distancing, Clark notes that customers have been more loving towards his staff. “If anything we feel the love a little bit more from people. The tips have been better. Lots of kind words, support and gift cards,” stated Clark. Another positive for Mundos is that sales have increased since last year. “Our sales are probably up about 50 percent from last year, overall. April was slower than it was last year, but after restaurants opened back up for indoor seating, our sales began to climb,” Clark explained. Even though Mundos was lucky enough to not close down, The Hair and Beauty Lounge did not have the same sort of luck. The Hair and Beauty Lounge is part of an industry that has been hit very hard during the pandemic. When rumors started

swirling about businesses going into shutdown, The Hair and Beauty Lounge staff, including owner Whitney Allen, all anticipated the shutdown would be two weeks at the most. “We had called the clients and told them we had to reschedule everyone for two weeks later. I called the girls and told them to just clean up the fridge, and by 2:30 that day they said the salons were closing. And, again, we were in the mindset that it was for two weeks, and we had come to the point where we were okay with it and had accepted it,” explained Allen. Two weeks turned into four. Four weeks turned into eight. Eight weeks turned into ten. Michigan was one of the last states to reopen salons. The Hair and Beauty Lounge worked closely with other industry professionals to come up with a solution to suit Governor Whitmer’s rules. To make sure their salon was safe to reopen, The Hair and Beauty Lounge remodeled and revamped their business. They made stations six feet apart, purchased new shampoo bowls, and moved their makeup lounge to a smaller area, away from the hairstyling part of the salon. “We had gotten the mindset [that] we have to flip the script [and] we need to do what we can to reopen,” Allen said. Hours also changed for Allen’s staff. “We extended our hours, so we’re open seven days a week now. Whereas our stylists used to work an eight hour shift, they now work six hour shifts. So from the hours of eight a.m. until two p.m., we have six stylists here, and then from two to three, it’s a shift change, so there’s no crossing of clients usually,” Allen explained. Severe changes like this have been very common among small businesses, including Peace, Love, and Little Donuts, a donut shop located in downtown TC. John Schnepf has owned the Traverse City location for four years. His location closed down for about seven weeks, starting in March and ending in late April. Peace, Love, and Little Donuts had to change the way they did business before to make sure they could reopen and do so safely. One of the biggest changes has been that there are now many different ways they can get customers their donuts. They use multiple platforms to do so. “So it used to be: walk in the door. Now there’s seven different ways we’ll get you donuts,” Schnepf noted. There are also sneeze guards in front of the counter where people order. These are in most businesses to protect customers and workers from being too close when communicating. However, the sneeze guards, along with other factors, have made it harder for Schnepf and his workers to communicate with customers. “Really just from a communication standpoint, the donut fryer is pretty loud. The radio is going, the phone’s ringing. We’ve got kids in here, ‘I want a dirt donut’, ‘I want sprinkles, I want sprinkles’. So all of those things in conjunction have made face to face communication a pretty big challenge for us,” Schenpf explained. All of the businesses have been doing one thing more than any other: cleaning. “The cleanliness has always been a premium in a restaurant, but now it’s more of a premium,” Schnepf says that he and his workers wipe down everywhere customers touch - door handles, the counter, the refrigerator, etc. As for the future, predictions vary among the different business owners. Schnepf believes that the masks will be something that sticks around for a while: “I think that probably next fall, a year from now, we’ll probably take the masks off. But I think that for the next nine months, we’re gonna have to wear them,” Schpenf pondered. Clark wishes he knew what would happen: “I think for me, that’s one of the hardest things to do, trying to predict what’s going to happen. And I think if you could predict what would happen, you’d be a pretty rich person throughout of all this,” The future is hard for anyone to foresee, but Allen believes that if we continue to work together as a community and respect one another, we’ll be able to make it through with fewer infectious cases. Despite the negativity and uncertainty 2020 has given, it’s refreshing to see that these businesses have been resilient through it all. We hope each small business can continue to adapt and change through every new curveball 2020 decides to throw. //

Graphic: S. Goodwin