It’s all our business. SUMMER 2020
COMMUNITY CONCERNS CHARLOTTESVILLE’S NONPROFITS FACE FUNDING CHALLENGES
Tutoring companies go virtual
Local restaurants and breweries evolve to survive the shutdown
Project Connect earns its name Save the Music broadcasts live(streamed) shows How local businesses pivot and persevere
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IN THIS ISSUE THE PITCH
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Emily Morrison’s Save the Music keeps concerts alive.
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Local tutoring services make the move to online.
Retailers pivot to contactless shopping.
Q&A with the director of Network2 Network@PVCC.
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UVA grads deliver groceries to at-risk consumers
The coronavirus pandemic has been devastating for Charlottesville’s tight-knit food scene, but it’s also prompted a surge of creativity and compassion. Here’s how local restaurants, breweries, and other food industry folks are evolving in a socially distant city.
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BACKSTORY The Hardware Store’s many transformations.
SUSTAINING SERVICES “Nonprofits are businesses, just like your pizza shop or your bank.” But their commitment to the community makes maintaining operations during a pandemic more difficult, and fighting for funds more competitive.
JOHN ROBINSON
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Cooking creatively JOHN ROBINSON
Rock Paper Scissors creates a sense of community with Project Connect.
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Cover photo by John Robinson
308 E. Main St. Charlottesville, VA 22902 (434) 817-2749 ■ c-ville.com c-ville.com/cbiz
C-BIZ, a supplement to C-VILLE Weekly, is distributed in Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the Shenandoah Valley. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Editor Laura Longhine. C-BIZ Editor Dan Goff. Copy Editor Susan Sorensen. Creative Director Bill LeSueur. Editorial Designer Max March. Graphic Designers Tracy Federico, Lorena Perez. Account Executives Lisa C. Hurdle, Theressa Leak, Gabby Kirk, Chris Till, Beth Wood. Production Coordinator Faith Gibson. Publisher Aimee Atteberry. Chief Financial Officer Debbie Miller. Marketing Manager Anna Harrison. A/R Specialist Nanci Winter. Circulation Manager Billy Dempsey. ©2019 C-VILLE Weekly.
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Shenanigans began offering free local delivery to stay afloat during the shutdown.
We are open Local retailers adapt to stay afloat
ERIC KELLEY
By Brielle Entzminger C-BIZ 9
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n March, multiple local retailers, from Oyster House Antiques to Angelo Jewelers, were forced to shut their doors due to Virginia’s stay-at-home order. But others adopted contactless business models, and customers are still streaming in. Shenanigans Toys & Games, on West Main Street, quickly made the transition to online shopping. Customers can now peruse items on the store’s website, then place their orders online, over the phone, or through social media. To encourage people to shop locally, the store offers free delivery for Charlottesville and Albemarle County residents, and contactless curbside pick-up for all customers, says owner Amanda Stevens. “There’s an expense to offering free delivery, and that’s something that I’m taking on in an effort to keep my customers with me [and] get by,” says Stevens. The store’s seen particular interest in puzzles, arts and crafts, games, and outdoor toys. Stevens also hasn’t had to lay off any employees—instead, she’s hired several more to help with deliveries. “I’m blown away by the community support,” she says. “I’m so thankful to be a small business
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“I’M SO THANKFUL TO BE A SMALL BUSINESS IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, WHERE PEOPLE CARE ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE’RE HERE WHEN THIS IS ALL SAID AND DONE.”
in Charlottesville, where people care about trying to make sure that we’re here when this is all said and done.” Longtime sportswear staple Mincer’s, at The Shops at Stonefield and on the Corner, also went online, offering free shipping for customers who spend $10 or more. For those who live within a couple hundred miles of the store, purchases generally arrive in a day, says owner Mark Mincer. The store had to furlough some staff, because business has had “a huge drop off from what we normally do,” says Mincer. The handful of people currently on staff make sure to stay in separate rooms, as they work on shipping orders, among other daily tasks. Like Shenanigans, Mincer’s has seen a big uptick in jigsaw puzzle orders, and is now sold out until next month. “It’s not going great. It’s not going terribly. But it’s going,” says Mincer. “I think things are going to get better at some point...we are trying to get one of those PPP loans from the government to try to help pay the hourly
THE PITCH > CONNECTIONS
GABBY KIRK
employees, especially the one who are not able to work.” (As this magazine went to press, Mincer’s reopened under Phase One of Governor Ralph Northam’s plan, allowing up to six customers in the store at a time, with masks required.) While relying mainly on website and phone orders, The Happy Cook, in Barracks Road Shopping Center, is allowing customers to make in-store purchases, but in a limited capacity. “We are allowing ourselves to be open for intentional shopping. If people call in advance and know exactly what they’re looking for, they [can] come in, make sure that is what they want, pay, and leave, so that we aren’t having interaction with them,” says owner Monique Moshier. “We’re normally seeing... in total for a day, maybe 10 people [do this].” For customers who don’t need to come into the store, The Happy Cook offers curbside pick-up, and free delivery for those within a 15 miles radius. It also posts no-cost daily cooking tutorials on Facebook, and streams one to two hour-long cooking classes per week with a professional chef ($20 per Zoom account). “From a business perspective, it’s just challenging all around...the revenue is sustainably diminished from a regular day. Every transaction probably takes three to four times more work than it used to,” says Moshier. “But it really has been so encouraging to feel like the Charlottesville community is recognizing that, and is really trying to get behind [local businesses]... customers are going out of their way to be like ‘Hey, I don’t necessarily need this today, but I’m not affected by this financially, so I am buying these things because I want to support you.” In order for area retailers to survive this difficult time, residents need to shop local as much as possible, not just now but long after the epidemic is over, says Elizabeth Cromwell, CEO of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, which has been working to provide the business community with information on loans, grants, and other forms of relief. “Everybody should look at a local organization first and see if they can fulfill your request,” says Cromwell. “And as major organizations like UVA, the city, and the county reopen in the coming months, we are certainly going to be advocating that [everyone] make a very specific effort to buy local wherever possible.” Even when you aren’t able to get what you need from an area business, “leave a review for somewhere you have shopped with on Google, Yelp, or any social media platform,” adds Stevens. “Those reviews go such a long way.”
Project Connect loops in everybody from Martha Jefferson to Bodo’s to Bend Yoga.
Print positive Rock Paper Scissors finds feel-good ways to stay busy By Erika Howsare
W
ith people sticking close to home, there’s a loss of everyday community. When Rock Paper Scissors on the Downtown Mall closed its doors to the public in mid-March, co-owner Dani Antol wanted to do what she could to preserve her normal connection to customers and other businesspeople on the mall and beyond. The key? Tapping into the fact that, even in isolation, many of us are having similar experiences. “Everybody’s bored and trying to figure out something to keep active at home with kids,” she says, describing the thought process that led to Project Connect. She envisioned an artistic way of keeping people busy and positive. “Let’s come up with activities that are free, that people can print off and do,” she says. “All ages, kids and adults.” From that brainstorming was born Project Connect, which exists as a webpage hosting a collection of printable PDF projects, most with a theme linked to a community partner. Antol wanted to help the business community too, including organizations (like her own) that had to radically rethink their business models after the loss of the brick-andmortar aspect. Project Connect loops in everybody from Martha Jefferson to Bodo’s to Bend Yoga.
Projects are meant not only to pass the time at home, but to keep local institutions in the front of people’s minds. “That’s so we don’t forget all of our fun places we like to go to, and we’re connected even though we’re all sitting at home,” Antol says. One project gives instructions for making a bagel sculpture out of (ahem!) the C-VILLE Weekly. Another offers a couple of recipes, along with nutritional advice, courtesy of foodbased nonprofit the PB&J Fund. Another includes scavenger hunt clues provided by the Virginia Discovery Museum. “It’s been fun to talk to the businesses and to see what they come up with,” says Antol. “When I talk to them about this project it’s something that is hopeful, it’s not trying to figure out a loan application or negotiate with your landlord.” She knows firsthand the daunting challenges for small-business owners at this moment. “We’re still trying to pay our employees working from home, since we can’t do retail. This is helping keep them busy. It’s been fun for them to help out. It’s a team effort.” Project Connect has added one to three new projects each week, and Antol says she’s been pleased with the response. “We didn’t want to push people to spend money,” she says. “I want to give people something they’re going to use, and it’s free.” One recent PDF includes sayings like “Thank you, masked superheroes!” that folks can color in and email to the Martha Jefferson Foundation to be posted around the hospital, showing appreciation for frontline medical staff. “We’re not food, we’re not in the medical world,” says Antol, “but it feels like we are trying to help in some capacity.”
C-BIZ 11
THE PITCH > LOOKING AHEAD
Big job By Erika Howsare
T
hink the news about employment is all bad? Maybe not, according to Frank Squillace. As director of the Network2Work@PVCC program, which connects workers to jobs, along with the support services that help them thrive in those positions, Squillace has an insider’s perspective. He says that while the landscape is seismically shifting, it’s not as simple as across-the-board unemployment. Here’s what he’s seeing on the ground. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the local workers and employers that your program serves? First of all, clearly the unemployment rates are going up. Employers who have had typical jobs in the areas that we serve (health care, construction/trades, transportation/logistics and hospitality/services) are affected by people staying home. On the flip end, there are those jobs that are being hired for, which is why our program’s continuing and in fact booming. A worker we had found a job as a hotel desk clerk contacted us the first day of the shutdown and said, “They reduced my hours to two a week.” But Wegmans was really ramping up, as are many logistics and grocery companies, so we sent him there.
AMY AND JACKSON SMITH
Employment program is still hard at work
Frank Squillace, director of Network2Work@PVCC, says that there’s more to the current job situation than across-the-board unemployment.
The big boys will continue to hire. We’re down to 35–40 employers from 100. But those employers still around are still hiring and have multiple jobs. I’m almost convinced there are COVID-proof jobs. Health care is the most apparent—UVA and Martha Jefferson will be open. Low-wage workers who can’t work from home are especially vulnerable to being infected with COVID-19, and African Americans, in particular, are getting infected and dying at disproportionately high rates. Is that a concern among your clients, and how are you addressing it? To date, not one of our African American Network2Work@PVCC job seekers has expressed at least an outward fear/concern in regards to on-site employment and COVID-19. We are obviously alarmed by these
THE PITCH > GROCERIES
UVA alums set up a not-for-profit grocery delivery service It’s been a common response to the pandemic crisis: What can I do to help? Two UVA graduates found their own unique answer by creating Social Distance Delivery. Nicholas Ehat and Fayez Jabboure, both 2019 graduates, now work in the Washington, D.C., area in medical-related jobs. When COVID-19 hit, they weren’t qualified to volunteer to help in the health care arena, but they wanted to contribute. “We were brainstorming ways to help,” recalls Ehat, “and that’s when we developed the idea—to create a free grocery-delivery service for those who were
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immunocompromised, or in the risk group, or couldn’t afford to pay for delivery.” The Social Distance Delivery model: Send them your grocery list, they buy and deliver your groceries—within 24 hours, often sameday—and you pay them back. No charge for delivery, and any tips are donated to the D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s COVID-19 Response Fund. Ehat and Jabboure recruited friends and co-workers as volunteers, and put out the word on social media. They developed a website, which made it easier to take orders and have people submit their shopping lists. Soon they had 17 volunteers shopping and delivering all over the D.C. area—and the idea was spreading. Nick Bierman, also a 2019 grad and Ehat and Jabboure’s Phi Kappa Psi brother, lives in Charlottesville and works for a tech firm. When Ehat told him about Social Distance
Delivery, Bierman asked if he could start a local offshoot. He had been active at UVA and in the local community, so he tapped his network and soon had four more volunteers. “We knew the services like InstaCart were backed up,” Bierman says. “We wanted people to have a more reasonable time frame [to get their groceries]. And we don’t care if you can or can’t afford to pay—the intent is to provide delivery for those who are most vulnerable.” Bierman stresses his volunteers have to be committed to proper social-distancing and health precautions, and wear both masks and gloves while shopping and delivering. “The point is to protect people, on both sides.” Technology makes all of this possible. Social Distance Delivery clients submit their grocery lists through the website. Clients are asked to provide a cell phone number so the volunteers can text when they are going to
numbers but locally, we have yet to see anything but encouragement for the safety of all people in general, as well as wonderful specific initiatives to assist our African American workers through creative opportunities like the “Mask-Up” program from the local Charlottesville Chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. How are you attempting to plan ahead right now, considering the uncertainty about what will happen throughout 2020? It really is hard to predict. Most people who enter the program have struggled to keep a regular, halfway decent-paying job. Maybe they were formerly incarcerated, or lived the cycle of poverty for too many generations. Our goal is to assist those people. At the same time, our founder, Ridge Schuyler, and our team are attempting to look at what we do when and if things open up. Which employers will be ready to offer jobs? Because we are a division of PVCC and get a lot of support from our administration, we do have the ability to be flexible like that. Three years ago, we started with a couple of job seekers and a couple of employers. Now here we are, a program that’s being courted by the state to bring to communities around the commonwealth. We have not seen a program like this around the country that connects people to jobs but also supports their needs for basic training, childcare, and transportation, through various health and human service agencies. It’s holistic.
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How does your mission intersect with federal and state support? The state supports a lot of the Virginia Employment Commission onestops around the state, where people go look for jobs, and that’s great. And obviously the CARES Act and continued attempts at funding small businesses is extremely important because our whole program starts with the job. You’ve got to have employers who have jobs. In order for those jobs to be available, these businesses must stay alive.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
“The intent is to provide delivery for those who are most vulnerable,” says Nick Bierman.
the store, how much the final bill is, and when they are about to arrive for drop-off. Clients who don’t want to leave cash or checks can pay through the Venmo app. An added bonus: The volunteer shopper can text the client to check what specific item is needed (brown rice? basmati rice? Minute rice?) or whether a substitute is acceptable (no Gala apples—would you like Fuji?). So far, say both Ehat and Biermann, most clients have included a tip, even though it is not required. Social Distance Delivery’s D.C. branch raised $8,000 in donations in its first month. And within two weeks of starting, the Charlottesville operation had five volunteers, had made eight deliveries, and was already getting repeat orders. “This has been an eye-opening experience for me,” says Bierman, “learning how much deeper the Charlottesville community goes.” –Carol Diggs
C-BIZ 13
THE PITCH > CONCERTS
Virtual reality Save the Music gives local artists a digital platform By Carol Diggs
V
irginia’s COVID-19 closures hit the live music business hard. But Charlottesville’s venues and artists are finding creative ways to keep the music flowing. The Front Porch’s Executive Director Emily Morrison wanted to keep musicians working and provide a community gathering point. The result was the virtual performance series Save the Music. Livestreamed three nights a week and rebroadcast on WTJU, the performances feature area musicians and a diversity of genres. An anonymous donor stepped up to guarantee
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Lowland Hum
the artists’ fees and enable a portion of each night’s online donations (about $600 on average) to go to a local nonprofit. “We’ve scheduled concerts through the end of May—we’re taking it one month at a time,” says Morrison. Other venues have tried to reschedule acts, while working around existing bookings and uncertainties about reopening. The Jefferson, the Southern, and Sprint Pavilion have been airing Save the Music and other livestreams through their social media sites without charge. “We want to be a facilitator for [those efforts],” says Jonathan Drolshagen, general manager of the Jefferson. “That’s one of the great things about Charlottesville—it’s a tight music community.” “Venues our size and bigger will be the last to [reopen],” says Kirby Hutto, general manager of Sprint Pavilion, which canceled Fridays After Five and other programming through June 10. “I would be ecstatic if we could salvage some of the season.” Many of the Pavilion’s events are also fundraisers for local nonprofits, which can make as much as $60,000 for the season. With venues closed, local musicians have been re-inventing how they make music (and money). Kendall Street Company, which like most performers relies heavily on touring, performed one livestreamed concert from IX
AMY AND JACKSON SMITH
David Wax Museum
Front Porch Executive Director Emily Morrison launched Save the Music as a way for local musicians to stay connected to their fans.
Art Park in March. Concerned about social distancing, the band is now posting pre-recorded content as well as livestreaming weekly solo sets called Containment Entertainment.
THE PITCH > DIGITAL
Lessons learned Local tutoring services go virtual By Lisa Martin
T
Michael Clem, who’s been performing for almost 30 years, says while most musicians live paycheck to paycheck, “I realized I was in a position to help others.” He began performing online from his home, with donations to go to Charlottesville’s Restaurant Community Fund. “If you really want to help musicians, you have to help their venues,” he says. David Wax, who with wife Suz Slezak performs as David Wax Museum, says, “We had to come up with some way to make a living as artists, and we saw a real need for content and connection.” Fans can purchase a virtual house party on Zoom, a three-song or 45-minute concert, or a personal song recording. The band’s weekly album postings, Friday afternoon kids’ concerts, and Sunday night performances (“We hear some people are using it as date night,” says Wax) are free, with online tips or donations welcomed. Lowland Hum, comprised of couple Daniel and Lauren Goans, offers a weekly livestream concert for tips or donations, as well as a free daily Instagram “catch-up.” “Daniel is great at improvisational songs,” says Lauren. Fans can buy a birthday, special occasion or fully improvised song via the band’s website. For musicians, connecting with their audience online is an evolving model. And while there’s no substitute for in-person performances, virtual engagements can help carry us through.
utoring services typically rely on in-person meetings so that teachers and students can share work, take cues from each other, and bond. The jump to online sessions has changed that dynamic to sharing screens instead, so local tutors are finding new ways to reach clients and keep their businesses afloat. Speak! Language Center, a world languages educational service founded by Christina Ball 16 years ago, shifted from its bright and busy McIntire Plaza space to online classes as non-essential businesses were ordered to close. “We teach 22 languages and have about 50 teachers, all of whom have converted to online instruction,” says Ball. “Technically, we could have stayed open because we’re an office of fewer than 10 people at a time, but most people want to stay home.” Ball applied for federal and local grants to enhance the delivery mechanisms for her online classes, and has received two so far. One, via Virginia Career Works, will allow her to upgrade her video conferencing capabilities on Zoom and to invest in Kajabi to create online course content. “I’d also like to create some ‘experience’ courses, such as ‘You’re planning a trip to Italy and here’s what to know,’ that I could offer to people all over the world,” she says. For Ball, the online “pandemic pivot” has had silver linings, such as being able to rehire a favorite teacher who had moved overseas, and to expand her company’s offerings. “I’ve always wanted to do more online, so this is kind of a blessing in disguise because now I have more uninterrupted development time to grow this side of the business.” Amid the turmoil of school closings and standardized test delays, academic tutoring service Georgetown Learning Center has
retooled its student sessions with the help of an internal online platform called ThinkingStorm, developed by a company founder. “The platform has an online whiteboard and can record sessions, and we were already familiar with it so it wasn’t difficult,” says Jess Johnson, director of educational outreach for GLC’s Charlottesville location. The majority of GLC’s students had been working with their tutors for months, which made the transition smoother, though the staff still misses the social events and personal interactions. “Sunday SAT prep class was always a really fun day in the office, with snacks for the kids and a good atmosphere,” says Johnson. As standardized tests were canceled or postponed, some families paused their sessions. “The hardest part for the students is the uncertainty of when tests will be held and what will happen next.” On the upside, several weeks of school delays and current school-limited contact hours have created opportunities for GLC, which is setting up tools for “sustained learning” so students don’t fall behind, and filling gaps for local boarding school students stuck in their dorms. “The switch to online has obviously changed how we’re running our current business, but will also change how we supplement our business going forward,” says Johnson.
“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO MORE ONLINE, SO THIS IS KIND OF A BLESSING IN DISGUISE.” —CHRISTINA BALL C-BIZ 15
ADAPT AND SERVE How area nonprofits are evolving By Dan Goff
Jane Colony Mills, executive director of Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry, has had to adapt her organization to run on fewer volunteers while meeting increased demand for emergency food supplies.
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L
JOHN ROBINSON
ike so many other Charlottesville residents, Jane Colony Mills’s day-to-day life has transformed drastically since March. Her new normal wasn’t caused by job insecurity or an abundance of free time, though—just the opposite. As executive director of Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry, Mills has been busier than ever during the past few months. “Our operations have not ceased at all,” she says. “They’ve just changed.” Mills is not alone in her experience as leader of a nonprofit. According to an August 2019 Governing study, the City of Charlottesville is home to an estimated 318 nonprofits—many of which, like Loaves & Fishes, have had to significantly restructure their operations in recent months to survive. For Mills, that restructuring has included adding some paid staff positions. Like many nonprofits, Loaves & Fishes has always run on volunteers—prior to March, Mills says that she had six full-time staff members but an estimated 160 volunteers. When Mills realized that the Loaves & Fishes model had become unsafe, its employee-to-volunteer ratio was one of the first changes. “We started to bring in a very select group of volunteers,” she says—those who were at low risk for COVID-19. From that group, she hired four new part-time employees, including a nutritionist to sort through food donated to the pantry and Spanish-speaking staff members to help with client registration, which now takes place in the parking lot. Traditionally, Loaves & Fishes has been a “client-choice pantry,” meaning that visitors of the pantry could enter its Lambs Road location and select the food they wanted from its shelves, like a grocery store. Now, the parking lot has become the center for distributions. Once a client arrives and is registered, a Loaves & Fishes employee or volunteer brings out a grocery cart full of food to be loaded into the client’s vehicle—so clients never have to leave their cars. The cart is sanitized and the process is repeated, again and again. “During normal operations, we serve anywhere from 350 to 400 CONTINUED ON PAGE 19 CONTINUED ON PAGE 35
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lthough not every nonprofit supplies need-based aid like Loaves & Fishes does, the sector comprises a significant portion of Charlottesville’s economy. The same Governing study shows that our city has the highest number of nonprofits of any metro area in the state. It’s common to stereotype nonprofits as bare-bones operations with little or no staff, but a study from the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies debunks this theory. Published in 2012, the last time such research was conducted in Virginia, the study indicates that nonprofits employ more than a tenth of Charlottesville’s workforce. Cristine Nardi, Executive Director of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, says “nonprofits are businesses, just like your pizza shop or your bank.” But their “double-bottom-line requirement”—the obligation to serve the community while remaining a viable business—makes the organizations uniquely vulnerable to a crisis such as the one currently crippling the economy. A May report from the Unemployment Services Trust found that, across the nation, 30 percent of nonprofits have laid off staff members or suspended their operations as a result of COVID-19. A nonprofit needs survey launched by CNE and Nardi “just as things were starting to shut down” shows similar trends on a local level. Of the 102 responses she received from area nonprofits, 25 percent have either laid off or anticipate laying off staff. Another aspect that differentiates nonprofits from the rest of the business sector is the extent to which they rely on outside donations to keep the lights on. Nardi says that while COVID-19 has only caused an increase in the community’s generosity, that generosity “falls differently on different nonprofits, depending on what type of services they’re providing.” Christopher Miller can attest to this disparity firsthand. As president of the Piedmont
Many environmental organizations, including those that support the Rivanna River, are facing funding shortages.
Environmental Council, a nonprofit whose initiatives range from land conservation to improving air quality, he expects a 20–25 percent reduction in donations this year. Such a decrease is a major hit for an organization “supported 100 percent by people in the community,” but Miller says he’s making adjustments, both to the budget and to PEC’s structure itself, to accomodate. One of these structural changes is to place a heavier focus on Roundabout Meadows, PEC’s community farm in Loudoun County dedicated to fighting food insecurity. Like Mills’ work at Loaves & Fishes, Miller says he’s seen an increase in demand for access to the farm’s produce. “We’re busier than ever.” Lisa Wittenborn, program director of the Rivanna Conservation Alliance, faces similar concerns about funding. Her nonprofit’s scope is narrower than the PEC’s, with a stated mission to clean and protect its titular river, so Wittenborn tried a different approach: She applied for and received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.
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households a week,” Mills says. “Right now, we’re doing between 400 and 500.” She says that, while her pantry’s ability to keep up with the increased demand is “pretty remarkable,” she worries about how sustainable it is. “By virtue of having had to hire people during COVID-19, I’m looking at $50,000–$55,000 in additional costs, just through the end of June.” But the increased cost has been accompanied by a “big increase” in donations, she adds. “People in the community are starting to recognize that food pantries like ours provide essential services.”
JACK LOONEY
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17
Christine Nardi’s Center for Nonprofit Excellence found that a quarter of local nonprofits had either laid off staff or were anticipating doing so during the shutdown.
This extra cash came at an ideal time, Wittenborn says. “Spring is our busiest time of the year by far, what with all of our projects and programs.” She had just made the difficult decision to cancel RiverFest, an annual, daylong affair featuring a kayak race, live music, and food. The PPP loan made up for at least some of the funds that would have been raised in this period. Wittenborn is most concerned about the end of the calendar year, however, when she says the RCA makes its biggest fundraising push. “What’s the economy going to look like then?” ••• In her mission to support struggling nonprofits, Nardi is also taking a long-term approach. Her nonprofit needs survey, asked organizations basic questions about their functions and current states of operation, but also gathered information about operating reserves and how emergency relief funds, if obtained, would be used. The main challenge, Nardi says, is “not being sure how soon the economy will recover.” At this point, she’s just as much at a loss as all nonprofit leaders about how to predict Charlottesville’s financial state six months or a year from now. All she can say for certain is that the situation for nonprofits will worsen before it improves. “The trends that we’re seeing… I don’t think they’ll surprise anyone. There’s a potential that what services nonprofits are able to provide will look a lot different coming out of this.” Other leaders also emphasize the importance of adapting as necessary to continue serving the community. And despite these inevitable changes, Nardi has hope. “Nonprofits have that way of operating in their bones,” she says. “They will shine in their ability to show their resilience.”
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Mel Walker has always offered takeout at his eponymous soul food diner, but most of his business comes from eat-in and catering orders. “It’s not the same money right now. But we’re hanging in there,” he says, thanks in part to support from his loyal customers.
DINING IN
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harlottesville is packed with restaurants that boast renowned chefs and cuisines from all over the world. Whether or not the oft-repeated but difficult-to-prove claim that we have more restaurants per capita than most U.S. cities is true, it’s safe to say our eateries are an essential part of our economy and community. Which is why the toll the past few months has taken on the restaurant industry is so sobering. Before the pandemic, the city’s restaurants seemed to possess a hydra-like quality, two new ones opening their doors for every one that shuttered, but this magical reproduction has ceased. At press time, both The Downtown Grille and Bluegrass Grill and Bakery, beloved Charlottesville institutions, had closed for good, and the likelihood of more closures is looming. Chris Engel, the director of the city’s Office of Economic Development, acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding the industry. “It’s an evolving situation,” he says. “There’s no real playbook.” One inevitability, Engel says, is that “we will see some more closures.” He adds that “while this began as a public health crisis, it will become an economic crisis. My belief is that the economic crisis is going to last exponentially longer.” Engel says the food services and hospitality/tourism industries have been most heavily impacted by this crisis, and he gives two main factors for this impact: loss of dis-
“PEOPLE ARE ATTACHED TO THEIR FAVORITE PLACE. IF THEIR FAVORITE PLACE LOOKS AND FEELS DIFFERENT, THAT’S A CHALLENGE TO ALL OF US.”—CHRIS ENGEL
Local restaurants and industry members cook up creative solutions
JOHN ROBINSON
By Dan Goff
cretionary income and consumer confidence. “When you lose those…you’re going to see a diminishment of demand.” Although Engel firmly believes the restaurant industry will “bounce back,” he’s not sure when it will happen or what exactly it’ll look like. He’s certain, though, that initiatives both federal and local are already in place to assist in recovery. The federal Paycheck Protection Program has provided a lifeline for many local businesses—although the stipulation that funds must be used towards retaining staff can prove a problem for restaurants that haven’t pivoted to a takeout/delivery model. “If you’re a restaurant and you don’t have customers, you really don’t have a functional business model…having staff is a challenge.” Still, Engel says that the PPP has so far served its recipients better than the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, another federal initiative that was “ill-prepared” for the volume of applicants and “has frustrated a lot of folks,” locally and otherwise. On a local level, Engels is quick to praise the Building Resilience Among Charlottesville Entrepreneurs grant, which provides up to $2,000 to qualifying businesses. Of the 69 grants issued by the city, he says, 30 of them—or 43 percent—went to the food services industry. As has been the case with every similar initiative, Engels says they weren’t able to accomodate all those who applied. “The demand was more than we were able to handle.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 23
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After initially closing his restaurant, the Ivy Inn’s Angelo Vangelopoulos is now serving takeout Wednesday through Saturday.
JOHN ROBINSON
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21
One of the requirements for eligibility to the BRACE grant was for a business to use at least half the funds for “some sort of creative application of their business model”—the “resiliency” component. This theme of resilience also appears in Project Rebound, a program headed by the Chamber of Commerce. “It’s intended as a recovery initiative to get sectors thinking about what the new normal is going to look like,” Engel says. Facilitated conversations will be conducted around seven industry groups, with members seeking creative ways to “restart and recover the economy.” Of the seven groups included in Project Rebound, he says the two getting the most attention from the community are food services and hospitality/tourism. The restaurant industry is closely linked to the sort of attractions that bring visitors to Charlottesville from across the country and the world, but it’s even more intimately linked to those already living here. There are currently 274 food services establishments in the city, which provide 5,700 jobs—employing more than 8 percent of the population. For local restaurants to make a comeback, Engels says, “creativity and adaptability” are both necessary. “The ownership entity is going to have to be willing to make some changes to their business model.” Just as significantly, the consumer must be willing to accept those changes. “People are attached to their favorite place. If their favorite place looks and feels different, that’s a challenge to all of us.” But before we can worry about that, Engels says the first step is getting people back inside restaurants—once it’s safe, of course. “Right now, the consumer is cut off,” he says. “The common thing that every business needs is a consumer. Without one, the business is dead in the water.”
Turning the tables How local restaurants tackled the takeout challenge
By Erin O’Hare
S
Chris Engel, director of Charlottesville’s Office of Economic Development
tanding in the Chimm dining room, Jay Pun felt a sense of unease. It was the weekend of March 7, and the tables were full of diners noshing on Thai and southeast Asian street food dishes.
ZACK WASJGRAS
“This is really starting to freak me out,” said one of Pun’s employees, who was also surveying the scene. Pun had to agree. COVID-19 was becoming an increasing threat, and it was nearly impossible to look around the dining room without cringing at the sound of a sneeze or a cough, or wondering who among them might be an asymptomatic carrier. “It’s every restaurateur’s dream to have a packed house, to always have a business going,” says Pun, but that night, the dream started to feel more like a nightmare. Pun, who co-owns both Chimm and Thai Cuisine & Noodle House, had good reason to worry: Just a few days later, on March 11, the World Health Organization would classify COVID-19 a global pandemic, and a few days after that, on March 16, the City of Charlottesville announced its first confirmed case. On March 17, Governor Ralph Northam issued a public health emergency order for restaurants to enforce a 10-patron limit, and by March 23, he ordered them closed for service other than takeout and delivery. Once that mandate came down, eateries had to decide what to do next: Close indefinitely? Expand an existing takeout business? Build a takeout program from the ground up? Lay off employees so they could start collecting unemployment benefits, or try to keep some on in a modified way? CONTINUED ON PAGE 25
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These are not easy decisions to make. The Charlottesville area has a high number of restaurants per capita (not to mention significant wedding and tourism industries), and the restaurant and hospitality industry employs a significant percentage of the local population. Reductions in hours and service options affect thousands of workers and their families. And while those decisions have varied greatly from restaurant to restaurant, and continue to shift each week, the desired outcome—survival—is the same across the board. “There are a lot of formats that make sense” in how to maintain a business right now, says Ben Clore, co-owner of Oakhart Social and Little Star, both located on West Main Street. “Every restaurant should do what’s best for them.” At first, Clore says, they reduced staff and tried takeout (using a combined menu for both places) to clear out the pantry and see how it went. But after weighing potential health and financial risks against benefits and rewards, Clore and his business partners decided that moving to a takeout model just wasn’t worth it. Both spots are closed for now. Just down the street at Mel’s Café, Mel Walker continues to prepare his full soul food menu. Mel’s has always offered takeout, but the catering and dine-in side of the business “was a lot more money,” says Walker. “It’s not the same money right now. But we’re hanging in there.” Walker’s had to buy more containers and utensils than he usually does, and says packing to-go orders requires more work than prepping eat-in plates. And as restaurant suppliers start to run out of certain things, most notably fresh meat (a number of America’s largest meat processing plants have had to shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks among workers), he’s a little worried about being able to get all the ingredients he needs. Before the pandemic, Pun estimates between one-quarter and one-third of his restaurants’ business came from takeout orders. “Looking back, I’m glad we had that in place,” says Pun. Business is doing well enough that he hasn’t had to lay off any employees. And for those who don’t feel comfortable
JOHN ROBINSON
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23
Jay Pun, co-owner of Thai Cuisine & Noodle House and Chimm, says having a takeout system already in place at his restaurants has given him and his employees a bit of stability during the shutdown.
working in the restaurant space, despite everyone wearing masks and gloves and taking extra cleaning precautions (like trading natural products from Method and Seventh Generation for CDC-recommended Lysol and Clorox-type cleaners), Pun’s tried to give them back-end work if they want it. “So far so good, knock on wood,” says Pun. “I don’t know if it’s a trend, if it will continue, or if it’ll get even busier.” Other spots, like Moose’s By the Creek in Hogwaller and Ivy Inn on Old Ivy Road, are doing takeout for the first time. “It’s going as good as it can go,” says Moose’s co-owner Amy Benson. Moose’s now offers its full menu of diner staples, including breakfast, at expanded hours (9am to 5pm Wednesday through Saturday), plus special family-style meals on Sundays. “You just have to find the thing that keeps people coming back,” she says. Demand has been high enough that Benson says she’s been able to keep on all five of Moose’s full-time employees. After Moose’s closed its dining room following the weekend of March 15, some regulars pressed to come in in groups of nine CONTINUED ON PAGE 27
JOHN ROBINSON
FEEDING THE COOKS
Walter Slawski (of Shebeen Pub & Braai and The Catering Outfit) has worked with Sysco Food Service of Virginia to establish a twice-weekly food pantry for laid-off restaurant and hospitality workers.
South African eatery Shebeen Pub & Braai and its sister restaurant/catering biz The Catering Outfit are among the local spots that have stayed open, serving takeout and chef-prepared meal kit offerings. And in a partnership with Sysco Food Service of Virginia, they’ve also opened a food pantry to help unemployed restaurant workers (including some of their own) stock their home kitchens. “I know what my employees are going through,”says Shebeen and Catering Outfit owner Walter Slawski. “Not only are we trying to create revenue streams” topay them if they want to work right now, “we’re trying to help people.” Sysco’s provided more than $25,000 worth of groceries, says Slawski, and they’re relying on private donations from the community, too. So far they’ve given out more than $32,000 worth of food to over 1,000 food service and event workers. The pantry is open Mondays and Thursdays from 11am to 2pm in the Shebeen parking lot, and what’s in each pre-packed bag varies from pickup to pickup. Sometimes it’s a lot of dry goods and refrigerator items like cold cuts, bacon, and juice, or fruit like bananas and oranges. One week, LittleJohns donated bags of potato chips and bread. Sysco’s donations are a little more on the wild side—five-pound bags of macaroni, for instance— but Slawski says there’s been nothing but gratitude. Any restaurant and hospitality industry worker can visit the pantry, which Slawski says operates on an honor system: People will be asked where they work, or used to work, prior to the pandemic, but that’s it. “We don’t turn anybody away.”—E.O.
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GETT ING CRAF TY: LOCA L BREW ERIE S ADJU ST TO THE NEW NOR MAL
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isn’t too worried, though. “I may not make the sales of the larger operations, but I don’t take their hits, either,” he says. McMindes’s story is similar to Roth’s— around mid-March, he closed Rockfish’s Preston Ave. property to the public and rethought his business model. He stocked up on growlers and bottles, and within days, he had a functional takeout and delivery service for a small but loyal customer base. “We were able to develop a nice following in the months prior,” he says, estimating his new revenue stream at about 40 percent of normal operations. Rockfish offers some unique perks to its clients, including free delivery and “growler roundups” on Mondays, so that repeat customers can reuse already purchased containers. McMindes knows that Rockfish is missing out on what would normally be an ideal time of expansion—“I wanted to see my first spring,” he says—but considers this only a speed bump in his brewery’s beginning. “I can spring back exactly to where I was before,” he says. “If you make really good beer, you’ll be fine.” Rob Campbell would likely apply the same sentiment to cider. Campbell is the general manager of Castle Hill Cidery, a business whose scale of operations falls somewhere between Rockfish and Three Notch’d. Like the two breweries, Campbell shut down the public side of his business in
March and reduced his staff size. And he also adjusted Castle Hill’s priorities, including what he estimates to be a “1,000 to 2,000 percent increase” in the cidery’s online presence. One of the staff members Campbell kept around was cider maker Don Whitaker, who has a lot to say about what he calls “navigating the danger factor.” “Cider making doesn’t stop,” Whitaker says. “Agriculture doesn’t stop because somebody’s sick, or everybody’s sick. You have to figure out a way to carry on.” Among other things, Campbell and Whitaker have used the time of closure to tidy up the cidery’s property, planting trees and “updating the landscape.” Now, they’re ready to let customers trickle back in. With about 600 acres, “we have social distancing built into this cidery,” says Whitaker. They’re still taking precautions, however, encouraging customers to wear masks while on the property and limiting capacity to 100 people at a time. Although Campbell is just as anxious as his contemporaries in the business to make the most of the summer months, he says that it’ll be a strange shift after so much isolation with just his staff to keep him company. “Overall, we’ve become closer,” he says. “It’s almost weird to be letting people back in.”–Dan Goff Scott Roth, president and founder of Three Notch’d Brewery
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While Governor Ralph Northam declared ABC stores essential during the pandemic (and the resultant spike in booze sales made it clear Virginians agree), local craft breweries and cideries have had a harder time staying afloat during social distancing. The key, says Three Noch’d’s Scott Roth, is the ability and willingness to adapt. As president and founder of the popular brewery, he’s had to shift operations for four locations across Virginia. The initial toll was significant. “Our last day was St. Patrick’s Day,” Roth says. Immediately afterwards, he closed down two locations and laid off 81 staff members. The Charlottesville and Roanoke locations pivoted to a takeout/delivery model for food, beer, wine, and cocktails. Roth has spent the following months finding creative uses for the resources Three Notch’d already has, like repurposing his fleet of grocery distribution vehicles for deliveries, and seeking out new resources, like applying for a PPP loan. He received one, and has since been able to reverse some of the layoffs and reopen the brewery’s other two branches. For an independent brewery only seven years in operation, Three Notch’d is a major player in the craft beer industry. Aside from their multiple retail spaces, the business also distributes bottled and canned products to area grocery stores. “Costco, Wegmans, Kroger, Food Lion—you name it,” says Roth. He’s seen an increase in this side of the business, but acknowledges that “the margins… are not that great.” He’s eager for a return to the far more profitable in-person purchases. And he’s not too worried about consumer confidence. Three Notch’d’s Charlottesville location is one of the city’s largest restaurants, and even with adaptations for social distancing, “there’s still an ample amount of elbow room.” Not every Charlottesville brewery has access to so much space, Roth acknowledges, and he fears for the livelihoods of some of the more intimate taprooms—even after the gradual reopening of businesses across Virginia. “Some of the breweries that weren’t quite as established may not make it through,” he says. Roth didn’t mention any names, but Rockfish Brewing Co., a taproom with only five months of operation under its belt, is certainly a less “established” local brewery. Owner Peter McMindes says he
or less, but Benson wouldn’t allow it. She adores both her regular customers and her employees, and it wasn’t worth the risk. “Hopefully we’ll get through this and get going again,” she says. Angelo Vangelopoulos closed the Ivy Inn’s dining room after that second weekend in March, too. Like Pun, the chef-owner had a growing sense of unease at seeing his restaurant full of people, and kept thinking, “We’re doing the wrong thing to make this better.” Vangelopoulos, who’s been with the restaurant since 1995, made the decision to close temporarily. Takeout didn’t seem like an option for the Ivy Inn’s upscale seasonal American cuisine. “We’re not a carry-out restaurant; we’re not equipped for it,” says Vangelopoulos. And he wanted his employees to be able to apply for unemployment as soon as possible. “I knew the line would only get longer,” he says. “It was one of the toughest days I’ve lived through. We’ve got almost 30 people that rely on us for their well-being and income. And there’s a pretty tight social structure inside a restaurant, too—we consider each other family, we take care of each other. That was really hard, getting the message out to my people.” But the restaurant was losing $800 every day it remained fully closed, so, as it became clear that stay-at-home directives wouldn’t be ending anytime soon, takeout seemed worth a try. After taking a week to figure out menus and ordering systems, and purchase takeout containers, the Ivy Inn now does carryout four days a week, with a different daily menu, Wednesday through Saturday (Thursday is “Mr. V’s Greek Night,” an homage to Vangelopoulos’ father, who’s now helping out in the kitchen and who owned and ran a restaurant in Springfield for many years). To keep costs as low as possible, Vangelopoulos and his family are handling everything themselves, and like many restaurant owners, he notes that takeout is even more work than eat-in. There are lots of moving parts, from taking orders to prepping food to texting with customers waiting in the parking lot. “I am not joking you when I say we are working more now than before we closed, and we were open seven days a week,” says Vangelopoulos. “I’m fully happy running with a lower profit margin at this time to really survive, to keep a little bit of cash flow coming into the checking account,” says Vangelopoulos. It also helps that his landlord has told him not to worry about rent right now. For PK Ross, owner and flavor virtuoso of Splendora’s Gelato on the Downtown Mall, the COVID-19 pandemic has made her think differently about her business. Immediately after the governor issued the stay-at-home order, she moved to carry-out only and added delivery. She has kept only one employee, her general manager, on the books. “Customers are ordering, but it’s nowhere near our walk-in business,” she says, in part because nobody’s out on the Downtown Mall. Normally at this time of year, Ross would be making between 18 and 24kg of chocolate gelato per week, one of the shop’s biggest sellers. Last week, she made eight. Even before the pandemic began, Ross had planned to close her Downtown Mall storefront in August. “Holding on until this mess lifts was my initial hope…so that I could have a farewell summer with my customers,” she says. But now she’s thinking of keeping Splendora’s going beyond the summer, in a different spot, and with something close to the model she’s currently operating—a scaled-down shop with more emphasis on delivery.
JOHN ROBINSON
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25
PK Ross, owner of Splendora’s Gelato, currently offers curbside pickup and delivery, which has allowed her to reimagine what her business could look like after the pandemic.
Even the most seasoned restaurateurs aren’t sure what’s next, and as the pandemic continues, the situation only grows more complicated. Already, one local restaurant—the Downtown Grille—has closed its doors for good. To receive the federal Paycheck Protection Program loans many small businesses are applying for right now, restaurants would have to keep their entire staff on the payroll. But between state unemployment benefits and the additional $600 per week federal benefit, many workers who have been able to qualify are making more direct income on unemployment than they would in a restaurant. And even if restaurants are allowed to open in the next few months, customers, servers, and cooks still might not feel safe congregating in dining rooms and kitchens. At this point, it’s impossible to know what the industry will look like in even a few months. But for now, many are grateful for the community support they’ve received, both from the funds set up to help their employees, and from takeout orders. Pun notes that “people are so much kinder than they ever were, which has been awesome.” Even in the best of times, customers typically don’t tip enough or at all on takeout, but Pun’s noticed that lately, folks are tipping the standard 15 to 20 percent, if not more. And Walker’s glad he can maintain relationships with his loyal customers, relationships he’s established through reliably serving hamburgers, fried chicken, cornbread, and collards for years. “I want the whole community to know how much I appreciate the support. I want everyone to stay safe and try to do the best they can to get through this,” he says. “I’ve been in the restaurant business a long time, and ain’t nobody seen anything like this before.”
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BACKSTORY
M
any still refer to it as the Hardware Store, but the 316 E. Main St. property hasn’t sold tools since 1975. In that year, the three-story building—which originally opened as the Hardware Store in 1890—was bought by Stan and Marilyn Epstein, who transformed the space into a spacious restaurant (though they kept the original name).
The Epsteins’ acquisition of the Hardware Store and its subsequent transformation coincided with the birth of the Downtown Mall as we know it today: a pedestrian walkway in the heart of the city packed with theaters, THEN: Hardware Store Opened in 1890 NOW: Silverchair Opened in 2020
restaurants, retail spaces, and other businesses. Although some locals were dubious of how successful the Hardware Store would be, just as they doubted the venture of the Mall itself, the Epsteins’ restaurant quickly became a Charlottesville institution, enjoying a decades-long run before closing its doors in 2007. Since then, the iconic building has changed hands and names multiple times—its current inhabitant, after Urban Outfitters moved out early this year, is local tech company Silverchair (previously confined to the third floor)—but its original moniker is still featured on both the Main St. entrance and the Water St. backside. If only in name, the Hardware Store lives on.–Dan Goff
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PHOTO: COURTESY OF STEVE TRUMBULL, AUTHOR OF VINTAGE CHARLOTTESVILLE: RARE AND REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHARLOTTESVILLE VIRGINIA / CVILLEIMAGES.COM
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