R e o p e n i n g
U n d e r
a
“New Normal” i n
C a r m e l
Writer // Janelle Morrison • Photography // Submitted and staff
Over the last couple of weeks, our local businesses have been either reopening after being shut down for nearly two months or operating in a severely modified mode of doing business.
W
e spoke with a few local business owners—Shelley Najem, co-owner at Savor Restaurant; Kimberly “Kim” Peters, eyewear curator at Eyes on Main; Scot Pollard, Realtor at Kempler-Pollard Group Encore Sotheby’s International Realty; and Mark Moreland, owner/personal trainer at Body Outfitters Personal Training Studio—to learn more about what ingenious things they were doing throughout the stay-at-home order and how they are going about the reopening process and doing business in a “new normal” pandemic society.
Navigating Through Uncharted Waters “As the recommendations and regulations came down, we immediately had the conversations with our clients about what they felt comfortable doing,” Pollard said. “We offered to keep their homes on the market if they wanted to and offered to temporarily pull it off [the market] if that’s what they were comfortable doing.” Pollard credits the MIBOR REALTOR Association (MIBOR) for providing its members with recommendations and regulations as they were coming online. “MIBOR did a great job of keeping us informed,” Pollard said. “What has been most surprising is that our market has shown no signs of really slowing down. In fact, the numbers from March and April are up from this time last year. I can’t explain it, but it’s a fact. So, we didn’t want to shut our operations down.” To that end, Savor Restaurant and Eyes on Main both recently opened at the beginning of 2020 and had no desire to completely shut down. So, while abiding by the governor’s stay-at-home
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order and the regulations that were put into place, all three of these businesses found ingenious ways to keep trudging forward. “Once the state shut things down, we began offering our curbside pickup and delivery,” Najem said. Najem and her husband, Henry, have over 60 employees that depend on them for their livelihoods, and they were compelled to keep
MAY 2020
2020-05-14 3:23 PM
