13 minute read
Lakes Cafe
from Progress 2021
by Perham Focus
“McDonald’s carries well because that’s what they’ve designed their whole model to do, is be food in a bag. Well, we haven’t designed our entire model to be that way so our french fries don’t travel great,” she adds.
For Hahn, the challenges have shown her and the team what they are capable of. Larson notes they aim for “succeeding as best you could with the limited opportunity we had.”
With the Minnesota executive order in November and December keeping retail stores open, people were able to shop and bring in customers for restaurants as well. Hahn describes the experiences of the community simply wanting to help as “tremendous” and “heartwarming.” Businesses buy lunch for their employees, gift cards are added regularly and giveaways between businesses encourage customers in various settings. “Without that local support, I don’t see us as making it this far,” Hahn says.
“It’s been very generous in tipping our staff because obviously that’s a huge part of their income taken out of the equation when they’re not doing table side service,” Hahn says.
The quick changes and slower business will hopefully shift toward normal by March, as Larson says. He’s looking forward to summer and for customers to enjoy food at their tables like “it’s supposed to be.”
“I can see it being one of our busiest summers we’ve ever had here,” Larson says. “People are sick of not doing stuff and it’s not like we’re a party bar really but just to go out to socialize, meet. People are missing that, so come on summer.”
— Assistant Manager and Bartender Charlie Larson, Brew Ales & Eats
LAKES CAFE: ‘GLAD TO BE OPEN’
With food in a box and less employees, the Cafe has loved the community support.
Customers are the engine that keeps a restaurant open from one year to the next. While Rich Doll, co-owner of Lakes Cafe, knew the importance of local customers long before the year 2020 — with the cafe open for about 25 years — he was amazed at how people wanted to support them when all they could get was food in a box.
He’s seen generosity, like customers dropping off Christmas cards and hundreds of dollars in cash for the employees they love and hope to support. The employees largely lived on unemployment insurance, at about 60% of their normal income, through the Christmas season. The tips made from serving people at tables disappeared, and that’s where some employees make their living, Doll says.
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“We need these people back,” he says. “They’re important to us. They’re basically a big part of what makes a small town cafe what it is — it's people, and that's why people come in here, because they know our staff. They get to know them and they’re close with them.”
The servers have worked alongside Doll and co-owner Randy Mattfeld for five, 10, even 16 years. Through November and December, Doll and Mattfeld worked four to five hour days alternating one of them along with a cook with the adjusted hours of 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The cafe was down to two, from a staff of 15-20.
The biggest change at the cafe is fewer employees for filling the to-go orders. Doll says it’s simply something they can do — not necessarily that sales are there. He estimates sales at about 25%.
If it were about making money, “we probably shouldn’t be open this time around,” he said. “We just have because it’s easy for us to do it with two of us.”
The cafe owners considered temporarily closing when restaurants first operated in the to-go model in spring 2020, though the Paycheck Protection Program changed that thought with enough funds to pay employees. “It’s getting us by,” Doll notes of the federal programs that have aided in keeping Lakes Cafe open. The cafe received $55,000 in PPP funds and $10,000 in Economic Injury Disaster
Loan funds in April. “Business is as you would expect, it’s pretty pathetic,” Doll says.
“People have tried to help us out.” As people have supported the cafe, with an appreciation for local loyalty that Doll is thankful for, the owners have given funds to employees as they could, especially over
Christmas. Community members shared monetary gifts, cards and simply wondered when they could see their favorite server again.
The to-go style also means the restaurant remains a constant for customers who regularly eat at the cafe
In preparing to open for indoor dining, a Lakes Cafe worker cleans the grill. Submitted Photo
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and want to enjoy an aspect of their prepandemic routine. Doll explains, “Even though we’re not as busy as we should be, we are here if they want a place to eat and come get some good food.”
Doll said even with sales “way down,” the cafe is in a better position than new restaurants. The impact on a new business would be “devastating,” he added.
“We’ve been established for a number of years so we’ll be OK, I guess,” Doll says. “Our biggest concern is our employees and how they’re being taken care of.”
On the limited menu, people’s favorites like breakfast and hamburgers continue in the to-go option but “people aren’t coming in right now at this time because they love eating out of a to-go box,” Doll says. “They’re coming in because they’re supporting the small town restaurants.”
He would like some "lead time" on the decisions for aspects like ordering supplies. Doll hopes government leaders will learn that the decisions they make can be too much, too fast. He doesn't have confidence that they have learned, though.
In the food business, precautions are daily in place for food and health safety regardless of the pandemic, and with these guidelines constantly in place Doll’s message to leaders is, “Let us do that.” He said cases aren’t coming from restaurants because of these precautions in place.
“We’ve been practicing safe practices as far as cleanliness before this all happened so this is nothing new,” he notes. “This is what we do.”
The changing restrictions come with a tenacious back and forth: from doors largely closed with quick entrances of customers for their to-go boxes to indoor dining with a percentage of customers trickling in and the brief option of outdoor dining in the summer. With people afraid of the spread of the coronavirus, the summer did bring extra takeout orders compared to other summers. Still, business remained down overall, Doll notes.
“I’m trying not to get my hopes up because we’ve been let down enough,” Doll said prior to restaurants reopening to 50% capacity on Jan. 11.
With business continuing forward, Doll says, “We’re glad to be open. I hope people come out, but it’s that time of year (January to March) where we’re used to being slow anyways.”
Masks sit ready for customers who may need them while picking up their to-go owners at a local restaurant.
Submitted Photo
— Rich Doll, co-owner of Lakes Cafe
Through the reopenings and reduced capacities for restaurants, Doll says he is past the point of watching the news, Jin Hu “it’s just frustrating.” Restaurants must also await the news to come 218-346-7941 910 Palubicki Avenue to “get back” to partially Perham, MN 56573 open, biting their tongue and hoping, as Doll notes. “If you’d have asked me Now in our 18th year of business We are located at... ORDER ONLINE! jinhuperham.com a few months ago, I would 407 Carlund Parkway in New York Millshave said they're not going to shut it down again, but who Employing over 250 throughout the year Offering outstanding Chinese cuisine, excellent knows? We've just come to accept we’re under the thumb of somebody else, and it’s just Kerrie Steinbach, Owner TENDER HEARTS HOME CARE service and friendly staff. Dine in and take-out available Lunch Specials! easier to do what they say than PCA Homecare Respite Monday: Closed to be angry about it all the Homemaking Tuesday-Saturday: time,” he says with a laugh. 877-362-9784 • 385-3466 11am-9:30pm Sunday: 11am-9pm
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Downtown business holds together
during the long winter of COVID-19
STORY BY ROSALIN ALCOSER
For Progress
In a year constantly impacted by the pandemic, Perham's downtown business community was hardest hit by the statewide shutdown in the spring of 2020. Through it all, the community has held together and held strong.
While businesses did see a slower tourist season than in past years, people still visited the lakes area over the summer months.
The year has also served as a reminder of the value and power of shopping small and local. It is through this value that Perham's downtown businesses have been able to weather the long, icy winter of the pandemic and keep their doors open.
“Locally, we’ve seen a definite impact, but I don’t think it’s probably at the same level as other areas in the state or county,” said Perham Economic Development Director Nick Murdock. “We haven’t seen any business really shut down completely due to the pandemic, yet.”
He said while Perham has held on so far, the pandemic is not over yet and Perham’s business community still has the rest of it to weather.
Murdock said geography helped keep the first wave of infections from reaching the community as quickly as it did others: “I think, as a community, we were proactive in getting all the PPE (personal protective equipment) and most people were on board with doing all of the preventive stuff.”
Perham’s business community has adapted with the changing restrictions on how they can operate.
“To be able to open during a pandemic and stay safe during it is a tough thing, and a lot of them did it really well,” Murdock said.
“Overall in Perham, because of the traffic that we get from industry workers and that type of thing, we’ve seen business,” Perham Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dan Schroeder said. “It has slowed because of COVID but it has kept us alive.”
“I think that our tourist numbers weren’t as bad as most people think they were,” Murdock said. “A lot of it had to do with the shutdowns and the restrictions.”
Through the efforts of marketing campaigns, the chamber worked to let people in places like Minneapolis, St. Cloud and Fargo know that Perham businesses were following COVID-19 safety protocols and was a safe place to visit this year, Schroeder said. He said events put on by the Chamber, like Turtle Fest 2.0 in June, which was a smaller version of the usual annual Turtle Fest celebration, helped bring in tourists.
In addition to the marketing of events and telling visitors that Perham was a safe place to visit during the pandemic, the Chamber also encouraged people to shop local. Schroeder said the Chamber always does joint promotions with its members throughout the year to encourage people to shop local. This past spring, the Chamber did a gift certificate promotion to get local people to support businesses closed during the shutdown.
“Perham is a little unique because we have so many people working here, and that’s a lot of traffic on a daily basis,” Schroeder said.
“A lot of businesses probably don’t have the cash reserve that they normally do going into January, February, March, which is typically the slowest time of the year for most businesses in town,” Murdock said.
Murdock, who until Jan. 1, 2021, was the owner of the downtown Murdock’s Ace Hardware store, now Lakes Ace Hardware, said in any year, Perham’s downtown businesses can be hurt if they are not ready financially going into the slow stretch between January and March.
These three-inch rocks were among the 10 used during the June 17 Race to Find the Turtle event, a new, special event planned in light of social distancing rules.
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Member FDIC ▲ Retail and food vendors set up booths in a blocked off area of West Main Street for a street shopping event during Turtle Fest 2020. ◀ Turtle Fest wasn't able to draw its usual crowd this past summer due to COVID-19, but some people still turned out for the limited festivities held June 19. Submitted Photos
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