COVID-19 restrictions change everything: Mountain Brook businesses, restaurants trying to adapt

Everything changed starting Friday the 13th.

On that March day Alabama confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which had been sweeping across the world since January. Best practices to mitigate its spread were for people to maintain a safe distance and frequently wash their hands, medical experts said at the time.

Like many restaurateurs, Mauricio Papapietro immediately thinned the seating at Brick and Tin, his eateries in Mountain Brook and Birmingham. He put out hand sanitizer for customers and staff.

“It was terrible,” Papapietro said. “No one was out. It was dismal.”

By the end of the weekend, the coronavirus was confirmed in Jefferson County, including at least one case in Mountain Brook. Health officers ordered restaurants to close their dining rooms to the public.

For a few days, Brick and Tin tried the take-out-only model that many restaurants adopted, and it seemed to make up for some lost revenue. But as local cases spread rapidly, Papapietro grew increasingly worried that his staff would get sick, or customers might become infected.

“So I made the very difficult decision to close the restaurant completely,” he said. “I was not comfortable operating at all.”

The city’s economy was pummeled further after Jefferson County’s health officer shutdown all businesses deemed “non-essential” effective March 20.

Boutiques and other retailers, salons, dance and exercise studios, jewelers, clothing stores, bridal shops, sporting goods stores all either shut down or had to find new models for doing businesses.

“We’ve got over 250 merchants in Mountain Brook,” said Tonya Jones, president of the city Chamber of Commerce, whose salons, including in English Village and Cahaba Village, have been closed for weeks. “When you think of everyone having to shutdown due to a pandemic, it becomes a little bit frightening.”

This is what people are calling the “new normal:” home-sheltering, curbside pickups from restaurants and merchants, cocktail kits to-go and shopping locally online. It’s crowd-funding for both furloughed workers and small-business owners who have been left wondering how they will be able to pay their bills.

And given the trajectory of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Alabama, the situation was expected to linger through May.

“It is hard for me to see that the businesses would be back open in May under this current environment,” Mayor Stewart Welch said in mid-April. “Something that is not happening now would have to happen.”

RAPID RESPONSE

City and civic leaders mobilized immediately after restaurants were ordered to close their dining rooms. Starting March 17, the mayor directed a grant from the Welch Foundation to help restaurant workers who suddenly were unemployed or had their hours drastically cut.

“They were the most vulnerable,” Welch said. “We wanted to get some help to them and do it quickly.”

Employees from more than 30 local restaurants applied, and some $70,000 was disbursed.

To encourage residents to continue shopping locally, the chamber posted and frequently updated a list of which businesses remained open and the conditions under which they were operating. The chamber posted tips on how residents can remotely buy gifts for graduating students and fill Easter baskets, and chamber members promoted the hashtag #curbsideMountainBrook for people to tag their curbside pickups on Facebook or Instagram.

The chamber also held regular video-conferencing sessions with merchants in the city’s commercial villages and in the recently developed Lane Parke. These virtual meetings became important resources for business owners needing to adapt to their new circumstances.

“They would share how they were being creative, how they were able to keep their curbside business going whether it’s restaurant or retail,” Jones said. “The most important thing in all of this is having a support system of people who are going through the same thing.”

Some 20 Mountain Brook businesses suspended operations after the orders to close their doors to patrons. Jones understands their pain.

Because her salons depend on person-to-person service, she had to furlough all her employees. Her revenue has been limited to selling gift cards and providing to-go home hair coloring kits to her once-regular clients.

But even with online shopping and curbside delivery, business was bad across the board for Mountain Brook merchants.

In early April, the chamber launched the Mountain Brook Merchant Relief Fund, a crowd-sourcing fundraiser through the online platform Swell. Grants will help business owners with rent, utilities and other costs (donate at onemb.swell.gives).

City officials are challenging each household in Mountain Brook to contribute at least $100, with a goal of raising at least $250,000.

“We’re also hoping to find residents who will make, let’s call it, significantly larger donations,” Welch said. “We’re looking for people who have the resources to help in a big way, and for everybody to help in at least some way.”

Through a partnership with the chamber, the Pants Store in Crestline is selling special T-shirts (order online at pantsstore.com) with the logo, MB1, in green and gold. All proceeds from the $25 shirts go to the merchant fund.

“We want to let the merchants and the restaurant owners know that we care deeply about them and their employees,” Welch said. “They really are the heartbeat of Mountain Brook. If you take away the local businesses, Mountain Brook is just not the same, at all.”

‘TOUGH DECISIONS’

The speed at which the city’s economy plummeted in March and April was stunning.

“All of a sudden everyone’s revenue goes from a fire hose to a few drops,” said Papapietro, the Brick and Tin owner. “You have to make tough decisions about who you can pay and who you cannot pay.”

Brick and Tin furloughed 52 employees including 35 at the Mountain Brook location, advising them to file for unemployment. Those who filed started receiving payments in early April.

Brick and Tin also had about $15,000 worth of food on hand when Papapietro announced he was closing his restaurants until further notice. Furloughed employees took some home with their final paychecks. After storing what he could in the freezer, Papapietro donated the rest to the Firehouse Shelter.

“We had two or three truckloads,” he said. “We probably gave $10,000 to $13,000 worth of food to the shelter.”

The financial effects extend to the small farmers and vendors from whom Papapietro has not been able to order for weeks. Relationships with Evans Meats and Five Star Produce go back 20-plus years to when the chef ran the kitchen at Highlands Bar and Grill.

Meanwhile they’re taking an approach of “we’re all in this together.” Papapietro is partnering with Trent Boyd, another longtime supplier, to promote and sell produce from Boyd’s Harvest Farm in Cullman. “Using all our social media channels to advertise it, we will reach out to our customers and sell boxes of produce,” he said.

Papapietro was optimistic his restaurants would weather this financial storm, although he did not foresee opening until June.

“Fortunately we have a community that loves us and cares about us,” he said. “I have no doubt they’ll be ready to support us when it’s time to reopen. We’ve just got to get through to that point.”

HELPING HANDS

Jones, the chamber president, estimates 80% of small-business owners in Mountain Brook have applied for rent assistance and payroll protection under the CARES Act that Congress passed in late March.

“Most of our small businesses will be able to make it if they can get relief,” she said. “I hope everyone who applied has gotten what they need.”

Furloughed employees returned to the Brick and Tin payroll in mid-April, through a forgivable loan under the Payroll Protection Program.

The application process was not quite the nightmare some restaurateurs have described, but it wasn’t exactly user-friendly either. “I would describe it as annoying,” Papapietro said.

Because the program was brand-new, officials kept revising the application, sometimes twice in a day. That was one advantage of being sheltered at home, Papapietro said. He was able to respond quickly, expediting approval.

People across the metro area are rallying to preserve a nationally-recognized food scene.

Birmingham Originals, the association of independent restaurateurs, and others have compiled GoFundMe pages for employees at several restaurants including Carrigan’s Public House, Sol y Luna and DG Restaurant in Mountain Brook (find them at bhamnom-nom.com).

Sponsors are hiring restaurants to feed beleaguered front-line medical workers. In early April, for example, Watkins Branch Bourbon and Brasserie in Mountain Brook Village catered dinner for nurses at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, courtesy of the law firm White, Arnold and Dowd.

Welch says he is impressed by how the disruptions and inconvenience have not deterred residents from rallying to help their favorite local restaurants and shops.

“We need our residents to go to the extra trouble to shop local and go curbside for pick-up,” he said. “If you ever were tempted to leave a $100 tip, do it now. It is critical to shop local to the greatest degree possible.”

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