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FEATURE COUNTING CHANGE COUNTING CHANGE
WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE ROCKY RESTART OF THE ECONOMY WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE ROCKY RESTART OF THE ECONOMY
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The Glass is Half Empty
Restaurants cannot survive on 50% of previous revenues for long. Demand for food delivery and the challenges of rehiring add insult to injury By Laurel Brauns
Restaurants have faced some of the most devastating challenges since the coronavirus hit: Gov. Kate Brown closed down table service altogether, and now that it’s back and in Phase One, restaurants have to adhere to strict regulations. On top of that, they must now try to lure their employees back—many of whom have grown content on the livable wage provided by unemployment insurance.
Karli Foster opened Café Yumm in the Old Mill District 14 years ago and survived through the Great Recession, eventually expanding operations to a new restaurant near St. Charles Bend off NE Cushing Drive.
“I love serving customers,” she said. “To walk into empty restaurants for the last five weeks was depressing, a very different energy; it’s been very challenging.”
She closed down both stores completely on March 29, but kept in close touch with her employees. About two weeks before her reopen date, she invited her staff back to work. Only 11 out of 30 employees wanted to return, even though they were given the choice of schedule and hours.
The problem? Over half of employees in the U.S. are making more on unemployment insurance right now than they made at their job. Due to a provision in the federal government’s CARES Act, they receive an additional $600 a week on top of their UI benefit.
Open!” or “Now with Delivery!” signs abound—whether hand-drawn with fat Sharpies or ordered special from local sign makers.
When things change, businesses need new ways to share that info—so we asked local sign makers whether that’s resulting in an uptick in business. Turns out, all the new signs are, at the very least, helping them stay afloat.
“We’ve seen an increase for COVID signs and social distancing signs, but a lot of my business is reliant on concerts and events—so we definitely were down in the last few months,” said Michelle Richwine of 1 Day Signs in Bend. “But we’ve been able to keep making signs for these businesses that are doing takeout and banners and things like that… and A-frames for their sidewalks.” “It’s hard to say how many more signs we’re making now,” said a representative from the local company Bend Signs. “It just seems like everything kind of changed. It was one thing, then it changed to a completely different type; people were needing floor graphics and clear plastic for spit shields, it was just different. “
Café Yumm in the Old Mill District has closed down all indoor table service, but customers are welcome to sit outside on the patio. Owner Karli Foster has spaced the tables 10 feet apart for social distancing.
Everyone Needs a New Sign
Delivery options and other COVID-era announcements help buoy sign makers’ bottom lines By Nicole Vulcan
Go anywhere these days and you’re sure to see a few new signs: “We’re
Richwine said the new signs have been “all over the board,” from new floor decals to specialty items, such as QR codes included on outdoor signs, that make ordering outside a restaurant easier. “Doing the COVID signage has helped offset [other parts of our business] for sure,” she said. -Intern Miina McCown contributed to this report.
Coincidentally, Foster set up an in-house online ordering system and signed a contract with the third-party delivery service, Grubhub, right before the coronavirus hit. Grubhub charges both customers and the restaurant itself for each item ordered.
“People were asking for [a delivery option], especially during coronavirus when people don’t want to leave their houses,” she said. “We do contactless service with our own curbside delivery, so I hope people will take advantage of that if they don’t want to pay the higher prices.”
Quarantine has helped local garden centers boom and bloom By Cayla Clark
One of the positives that bloomed from widespread stay-at-home orders was the development of healthy new hobbies, including backyard farming and gardening. From Victory Gardens to chicken coop construction, many flexed green thumbs as a way to pass time, stay entertained and secure some food for the future. I personally purchased a plethora of houseplants, which I repotted and placed around my previously gloomy bedroom-turned-office.
For some, gardening was not much more than a fun way to pass time with the family outdoors. For others, producing fresh produce put their minds at ease in case of a food shortage (after panic buying led to temporary grocery shortages). Regardless of the initial inspiration, local garden centers have been thriving.
Garden centers, including Green Leaf Garden Center and Moonfire and Sun have told the Source that sales had skyrocketed over the past couple of months. Meanwhile, local groups are creating new veggie gardens to feed local people. The garden group South County Gardening has teamed up with volunteers and businesses from Bend, La Pine and Sunriver to build a Victory Garden at the La Pine Senior Center.
Volunteers work to create a new Victory Garden near the La Pine Senior Center.
Drew Cogen, owner of Postal Connections, told the Source that numbers are up 25% from last year at this time. He anticipated there would be layoffs, but that wasn’t the case.
Winning: Holy Ship!
Postal Connections has seen a 25% increase in revenue during the pandemic By Isaac Biehl
Whether it’s a letter from family or a treat-yo-self present ordered on a whim, opening up a new package is a pretty great feeling. And while the United States Postal Service has been under the microscope throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for its budget woes, it turns out middle-man postal centers, like Postal Connections in Bend, are doing well.
“Right when the lockdown started, we thought it was going to slow way down,” said Cogen. “So we cut our hours back. But then we were actually busier than we normally are. We were kind of hoping people would stay home but people kept coming in. They’re still coming in.”
Spending a lot of time in the house can get people stocking up on a variety of things that seem important.
“I think people are bored. They’re
Bendites agree that getting their hands dirty has been a fulfilling experience.
“I’ve had the time over the past couple of months to really dive into home gardening, which I’ve honestly been thinking about exploring for several years,” said local quarantiner Tyler Cranor. “I feel it’s important for us to do what we can to use the resources that are readily available to us, and be both self-sufficient and environmentally friendly.”
Cycle Pub(lic humiliation)
Wow. We actually kind of miss Cycle Pubs
By Cayla Clark
just ordering stuff. Like, ‘Oh, Susie would like that!'” says Cogen.
Postal Connections is also seeing an uptick in business through its partnership with Jax Hats. The company’s knitted wares are always found in Postal Connections, but during the pandemic the two companies partnered up to make masks for people to buy or send to their loved ones. Anyone who was sending a mask or purchasing one for themselves could ship it and pay only the store’s rate.
“I think it created a lot of good will in the community,” Cogen said.
Losing: The Postal Service (not the band...but probably the band, too)
In a May 13 statement from the National Association of Letter Carriers, NALC President Fredric V. Rolando wrote, “the conversation about Postal Service finances is nothing new. Unfortunately, this pandemic continues to cripple the economy, resulting in sharp declines in letter mail volume for the Postal Service. It currently projects that it will exhaust its cash on hand by the end of September if Congress and the White House fail to intervene.”
Bend is a craft beer-centric town, and it’s also a coveted tourist destination. Combine these two factors and you’ve (usually) got yourself an eight-person bicycle, captained by a (very patient) beer connoisseur who expertly guides it from local brewery to local brewery. The Bend Cycle Pub is not exclusive to out-of-towners, and once the tour company does reopen its doors, organizing a unique outing with friends would be a great way to support this local business.
courtesy Cycle Pub
After such an extended hiatus from normalcy, I’m surprised by the things I miss. Children laughing joyfully as they run around playgrounds. The humble dumpling cart parked outside of The Capitol, blaring dubstep and selling dough balls to drunken 20-somethings… hell, I’ve even started to miss the sweet sounds of boozed-up bachelorettes screaming as they whiz by the Source building on Cycle Pubs. While the honking and yelling may have seemed nothing short of obnoxious at the time, I would currently welcome the sight of a strange “corporate bonding” multiwheeled octopus crawling gracelessly down Bond Street.
While locals may have currently written off the Cycle Pub as an awkward tourist attraction, keep in mind that there are many local, tourist-fueled businesses that could use love and support in these trying times. Maybe a Source Cycle Pub tour is in order…
If local drivers or sorters get laid off due to federal cuts, and the centers aren’t able to hire seasonal or temporary work, Cogen says local people will definitely see some deliveries slowed down, with the remaining people on staff handling a much larger workload. “We’re just one store out of thousands like that. So if we’re busier, then you have to imagine everyone else is busier.”
Postal Connections will be relocating this June, but not far, moving just a couple of spaces down into the old laundromat by Sherwin Williams. Its owners hope to be open in the new space by June 15.
www.bend.delivery
