Businesses Bounce Back After Lockdown

By Tony Centonze

As we begin to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, an ordeal that has closed schools, shuttered businesses, and taken too many lives, we stand at a crossroads. Though the health risks remain, a majority of business owners and employees are eager to get back to work. So, we move forward with a mix of caution and optimism.

Andra Ruffier, Marketing Director for Governor's Square Mall, recently took a few minutes to talk about the devastating effects Covid-19 had on Clarksville's largest retail space, and its comeback which is now underway.

“Early on, our tenants started having to adjust their payroll, and hours of operation, just to be able to meet their financial resonsibilities,” Ruffier said. “Customers just stopped coming in, and we started seeing more and more stores decide on their own to close. That happened before the Governor's mandate. A lot of our retailers started to close about two weeks prior to the lockdown because there were no customers. Governor Lee issued his mandate around March 24, but most of the stores had already made their decisions to close by St. Patrick's Day.”

Ruffier said that by March 17 very few tenants were still open. That's when the remaining few decided to close as well. Apparently, the mom & pop's held out as long as they could.

“For these smaller, locally owned businesses, this is their only means of income,” Ruffier said. “But, it was easier for them to close their doors, minimize their expenses and try to hold on. Their labor costs and utilities were more than they were doing in sales at that point. We had gone from being a very vibrant shopping center to maybe seeing one-hundred people per day. It was amazing to see business drop like that."

Ruffier watched as Clarksvillians took note of what was happening across the country and began to prepare for the worst. But, there were two distinctly different retail trends unfolding.

“I would go into GFS or Target,” Ruffier said. “There were swarms of people inside buying supplies, because they didn't know how long they were going to have to stay at home. Those two and Petco are retailers in our plaza area. They were able to stay open the entire time, because they were considered essential. It was such a startling contrast. These businesses actually did better than they normally would during this part of the year, while others literally did nothing.”

Two months later, Governor Lee announces his phase-1 reopening in the majority of Tennessee's 95 counties. Rufier talks about how eager everyone was to get back to work, and the changes they are making to take care of their customers in these still uncertain times.

“This has changed the way retailers operate,” Ruffier said. “A lot of them are now offering what we call 'touchless' shopping options. It's curbside service. We are also doing 'Mall to Go.' which gives tenants an option that allows curbside service to occur within their units, if they so choose.

“So, if their customers buy something on-line, they can park in one of our designated areas, call the store, and say 'I'm here to pick up my item.' A store associate will walk the item out to their vehicle, check their identification, and deliver their product (s). Everyone is getting very innovative on how to get reopened, while establish new, safer ways to shop. It's interesting.” Ruffier says, customers are still waiting on Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, and J.C. Penney to reopen, but everybody else is back on line.

“Some of the larger corporations are taking a little longer than the smaller companies,” Ruffier said. “A lot of national companies are waiting until they can open all their stores at once, throughout the country, or within a particular region.

“That makes things easier for them. This pandemic has changed the way a lot of businesses operate. Shopping has evolved. For example, right now, you can't try on clothes in the stores. So, they've made return policies easier for the customers.”

Rufier says her tenants were definitely ready to get back to business.

“They were coming to us to get into their spaces and get ready before we even knew what the reopening date would be,” Ruffier said. “Many of our retailers were coming in to clean and organize their stores, and rotate stock. They had been set up for early Spring, and Easter. When they reopen, those items are all now on clearance. There were a lot of preparations made to be ready when the day came that they could reopen. We were being contacted right after Easter, to allow them access to their spaces. You could tell, they were going stir crazy.”

Ruffier says, so far, attrition does not appear to be a major factor.

“We've been lucky,” Ruffier said. “We haven't been contacted by any tenants saying they wouldn't be able to reopen. Knock on wood, so far so good. I will tell you, that first weekend we opened was a like a holiday season. It was very, very busy. In fact, it was almost as busy as Black Friday.

“I think the initial fear has dissipated. At this point, many seem to feel that we've done better than the initial projections, so lots of people are willing to get back to their routines, which includes shopping and dining out. We've been getting hundreds of calls every day, as to what stores are open, what our hours are, and is the food court open. That was a big question. Everybody just wanted to get out, and get back to normal.

“What started as a bad situation for our retailers has had something of a silver lining. Many of them came in and actually made their month during those first few days of being reopened. I think we'll get back to normal pretty quickly. Yes, this has been a scary situation, but if we all think smart, embrace the recommendations and do the things we should have been doing all along, like giving each other personal space, and washing our hands, we can get through this.”

Moving forward, mall employees are wearing masks, and according to Ruffier, most of the customers are as well. New sanitation schedules are in place, so customers can see the mall being cleaned, which will hopefully gives the customers comfort in knowing that Ruffier's team is doing their due dilligence to provide a safe environment.

“We had almost a two-week reopening headstart on Nashville, and we got a lot of traffic from Davidson and other surrounding counties,” Ruffier said. “This has been a huge learning experience for us, and we are anxious to get back to whatever the new normal may be. Hopefully, before back-to-school shopping season begins.

“And, on a positive note. We are planning to have our annual June Boom on June 13 at 9:00 p.m. Sadly, Clarksville and Fort Campbell have canceled their fireworks shows. Our event will allow people plenty of room for social distancing, and a much- needed chance to celebrate.” Some of the business owners we spoke to were reluctant to comment. They and their employees are excited to be back in business, but cautiously optimistic about how things might unfold over the next few weeks, or months.

The consensus is that every precaution is being taken, rigourous cleaning and disinfecting, proper use of masks, adherence to social distancing restrictions, etc. But, there is still reticence among business owners and employees as millions of Americans are metaphorically caught between a rock and a hard place.

Darla Knight of Yada on Franklin, a popular Italian eatery that opened in November of 2019, talked about facing these challenges and opportunities. “We were deemed essential, so we stayed open for curbside and deliveries,” Knight said. “But our dining room was closed. We actually chose not to reopen the dining room when Governor Lee first gave the green light. We just opened Monday, May 18.

“We are currently open at 50% capacity. We removed all our soft seating. All tables are six feet apart, and all our servers wear gloves and masks. We went from thirty staff members to six while the dining room was closed. Luckily, all our front-of-house staff came back, many of our kitchen staff as well. We are now operating with about fifteen employees.”

Knight says she would have liked to stay closed for two more weeks, but … “ 1) I couldn't afford it, and 2) my employees were pushing to come back to work. We've invested so much training in our employees, I didn't want to lose them. We are offering a higher level of service, and that takes a lot of training. My staff was chomping at the bit. We weren't quite ready, but we brought them back and put them through some additional training.

“We had the luxury of opening in November, and immediately meeting projections six months out. We hit the ground running, and the community embraced us, but that presented a lot of challenges. We needed to pause, take a breath, and examine our processes and procedures. So, we're trying to look at this closure of our dining room as a gift. We were able to reevaluate, rewrite our employee handbook, update and modify our processes, and then retrain our server staff.”

Knight and her team are excited to be back, and so are the customers.

“The response has been great,” Knight said. “Our demographic is a little more careful, a more mature age group, so they are cautious to get back into restaurants. We now seat forty, and we are filling our tables, so the 50% guideline seems to be working. Our sales numbers are going up every day. We hope we can maintain this momentum. “We are absolutely optimistic that we will recover, but we are going to modify our business model. Covid-19 has taught us that our customers are loyal, but we have to diversify and expand our base. We will continue to enhance our to-go options, and offer more complete dine-at-home options. I do think people want to get restaurant-prepared meals, so even if they aren't going out, they still want to enjoy great-tasting food that someone else has prepared for them.”