More than a decade ago I started my first business, a Spanish language tutoring business called Spanish by the Hour, LLC. I was at a new student’s home and when her mom came to write me a check she asked how to spell my name. I told her she could make the check payable to Spanish by the Hour and she perked up and commented about how I had a business and wasn’t just a freelancing tutor. I recall this particular day often because she immediately suggested that just as I filed my articles of organization with the Secretary of State to form my LLC, I needed to remember to alert them when I decided to close my business- apparently a lesson she and her husband learned the hard way.
As I left the house I had such an odd feeling. Why would I close my business? Such odd “advice” to give an aspiring entrepreneur.
Ten years ago I formed my second LLC, this food tour business called Local Table Tours. The past decade has enabled me to get an insider’s look at more restaurants, bars, cafes, breweries, coffee shops, and other food purveyors than I have actually counted. My current count is on my website and is a “featured establishment” list with close to ninety businesses across Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins. This list is something that I update, especially when we start featuring a new establishment. But other times, a restaurant closes and I reluctantly edit the list, removing the name, and feel a sense of loss.
This sense of loss is something that has been haunting me for some time now as I sit at home during “Shelter in Place” and now “Safer at Home” guidelines in Colorado. I have no idea when Local Table Tours will be able to run restaurant tours again, and I have no idea how many of the places we’ve been featuring are going to make it through this pandemic and open again for business. The sad reality is not every food business is going to make it, and it’s filling me personally with a sense of impending loss as each and every venue we bring our guests to holds a special place in my heart.
My first real sadness at a restaurant closure happened when I found out on tour that my favorite spot in Boulder, The Pinyon, would be closing in the coming week. This was a spot owned by Chef Theo Adley and his family that had a long diner-style counter/bar right in front of the kitchen for all of my tour guests to sit and talk to the chefs as they cooked them food and then chat and answer questions while they ate. It was a place that when featured on tour I knew it was going to be an exceptional tour and I knew guests would end up happy, no matter what else might have happened on tour that day. Did the restaurant before forget that we were coming in? No big deal- The Pinyon would knock their socks off and all would be OK. Did one place have mediocre service? No big deal because the entertainment value of The Pinyon would make up for it.
I personally became attached to The Pinyon and was there most days of the week- sometimes just walking by and stopping in to see what was new for that evening, sometimes for multiple drinks, sometimes for dinner. It was a place I loved and met some extraordinary restaurant staff there. Finding out they were closing was genuinely heartbreaking to me at the time. But, The Pinyon threw one hell of a party to eat all of the food and drink the bar dry in a celebration with food industry friends that won’t be forgotten. Everyone showed up to toast Theo and his staff and wish them well. It is a ritual of sorts to throw a closing party and it allows a more positive feeling of the closure.
The history of the past decade of food businesses in Colorado is filled with opening after opening after opening of unique and successful establishments, sprinkled with some closings that were surprising, but in hindsight understandable from a balance sheet perspective on operating a successful business. When The Squeaky Bean in Denver closed, I was in disbelief, denial, and then despair. They had been a solid, go-to restaurant for me personally and my tours and shuttering up with no notice was unsettling to me at the time. The Cup closing in Boulder was a huge loss as few coffee shops downtown are dedicated to the art of a perfectly brewed cup of coffee, and The Cup was leaving a hole to be filled that I couldn’t imagine would be filled given the price of rent downtown.
The immediate closure of all restaurants in mid-March was shocking, and I’ve had two months to ruminate from the safety of my home on what the future might hold for food businesses, mine included. As a service provider with very low overhead, I am confident I can sit this out and wait without closing up shop. But my friends and colleagues who I have come to know so well over the ten years I’ve been eating and drinking around town are in situations where they have staff laid off, rent to pay, and limited (or no) customers. This is what keeps my wheels turning at night. Which places are going to reopen, who is going to be working there, and what the hell is “dining out” going to look like?
Reading that some highly acclaimed NYC restaurateurs are questioning re-opening or what their models will look like upon reopening gives me something to think about. There is no guarantee everything will be the same in the near and the distant future. Restaurants are now operating on take out. Some are now putting together meal kits to make restaurant quality meals successfully at home. If occupancy limits are low due to safety upon reopening, why would an owner pay thousands and thousands of dollars in rent for a dining room that sits mostly empty when the bulk of the income is from takeout? One could accomplish the take out and meal kits from a commissary kitchen at a fraction of the cost for rent.
News articles say “The End of the Restaurant as We Know It” and it does not seem overly exaggerated to say things will not be “normal” again, and not close to “normal” for some time. I too understand the fear of spending time in an enclosed space, breathing in air that could have virus particles. Will dining rooms move outdoors into streets that are off limits to traffic for the time being? Maybe they will, but weather leads to many potential hurdles for that to achieve sales on par with “normal” business.
Years ago when my student’s mom told me to alert the Secretary of State when I closed, it sparked a memory at the time from a business class I took. A guest lecturer discussing business plans told the group that one of the best things about being a business owner was that you were the one to decide when it was time to call it quits. You got to be the one to “lay yourself off” as you had the control to make those decisions. I held that statement as a truth as a business owner, and this pandemic has now shattered that truth. There are so many struggling business owners right now being forced to make decisions they never dreamed of just two months ago, and my heart truly goes out to them. Deciding to close in the face of a pandemic that has no immediate end in sight while having an insufficient or non-existent financial life line to crossing to the other side sounds terrifying to me.
As my world is currently centered around food, my attention on social media is mostly to the food and beverage scene where restaurant owners, managers, chefs, bartenders, and servers openly talk about the shortfalls of the PPP and the uncertainty of reopening. But, I imagine this is something many independent yoga studio owners, gym owners, massage studios, salon owners- any business that was “non-essential” suffered a disruption of sorts and this disruption has no real end in sight. The loss of control over one’s business is not necessarily something anyone planned for, learned about, expected, or knows how to navigate.
I’ll end here saying… to be continued… Many new developments will come in the next couple weeks regarding restaurants, coffee shops, breweries, etc. When I have a vision of what Local Table Tours will be able to offer, you’ll be the first to know.
Until then, be well, wash your hands, and please, please wear a mask.
#wegotthisdenver
#wegotthisboulder
#wegotthisfortcollins
-Megan