Note: The Shawnee Mission Post is making all coverage of the coronavirus pandemic accessible to non-subscribers. (If you value having a local news source covering the situation in our community, we hope you’ll consider subscribing here).
Service industry businesses are bracing for a major hit from the two-week closure mandated by Johnson County government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, several local restaurants and pubs say are trying to remain optimistic about the future of their businesses and are banding together to support each other and keep afloat.
It’s been a trying few days for the local restaurant industry as circumstances surrounding the coronavirus have been evolving on a daily basis. Take Monday, for example, where staff at Transport Brewery in downtown Shawnee spent the day disinfecting all of the surfaces in the taproom to protect the health and safety of customers. Just a few hours later, the governments of Johnson County, Jackson County, Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Mo., collectively announced they were ordering restaurants, bars, taverns, clubs and movie theaters closed to the public for 15 days.
Jonathan Williamson, owner of Sandhills Brewery Company in downtown Mission, said Tuesday that the company is actively adjusting operations to try to keep cash flowing in.
“It is what it is; it’s a crappy situation for everyone involved,” Williamson said. “Cash flow is problematic when you can’t sell things over the bar for a small brewery. We have a lot of beer on hand and very few ways to sell it and bills to pay and a team to pay. We’re going to do everything we can to keep paying everybody, but we have to keep the cash flow coming in.”
‘It’s going to be a huge hit’
Williamson’s message is one Shawnee Mission area business boosters say they’ve been hearing a lot in recent days.
“It really is amazing how quickly everything changes and the fluidity of this,” said Blake Schreck, president of the Lenexa Chamber of Commerce. “Nobody knows what is coming, and nobody knows what the impact of this is going to be. The only thing that is certain is the quicker we try to get a handle on this and get on the other side of this, the quicker that we can try to get back to normal life.”
In discussions last night leading up to the announcement of the mandated closure, Schreck said local government leaders acknowledged the risk of a negative impact on restaurants.
“It’s going to be a huge hit,” Schreck said. “It’s going to obviously be a disruption for everybody, but hopefully the restaurants can be creative and try to do some curbside service, takeout and drive through, and people will be supportive of that and their efforts. And then we can reevaluate in 15 days and see what’s going to happen.”
Deb Settle, president and chief executive officer of the NEJC Chamber, said working together with local businesses and government officials “has been an incredible experience.”
“I think just pulling together is what I’m seeing the most of right now,” Settle said.
Restaurant and bar owners echoed Settle’s comments and remained optimistic after the announcement last night. Many of them are prepared to continue operations, selling gift cards and merchandise as well.
“I think it’s important that everyone in society try to do their part right now to get control of what has been a bad situation for all of us,” said Nick McMillian, an owner of Johnny’s Tavern, which has several locations in the Kansas City metro area. “And true, it is unfortunate for our employees, for the businesses, it obviously isn’t going to be good for them. But we all need to do our part, and if we all pull together as a society, we can make it through this.”
Curbside KC platform centralizes restaurant resources for customers
One solution to the closure of dining rooms and lack of cash flow for restaurants is Curbside KC, a platform launched on Saturday by the Open Belly Podcast that centralizes information about takeout, curbside pickup and delivery options for restaurants in the Kansas City metro area.
“I feel like there wasn’t really a centralized place to figure out who is doing what and also to give instructions on how to pick up a curbside order,” said Danielle Lehman, host and creator of Open Belly Podcast and the brainchild of Curbside KC.
Lehman said it started with 25 restaurants on Saturday and as of Tuesday, there are nearly 500 restaurants on the list. The list includes the chefs of Strang Hall at Edison District, a food hall in downtown Overland Park.
The Curbside KC site has had about 25,000 visits so far.
“It totally went viral very quickly,” she added. “I can’t believe how many restaurants we have in Kansas City. And I’m glad people are getting a lot of use out of it. It’s a very scrappy website — I used basically a spreadsheet to build it — but I think it’s pretty functional for now, and we can adapt it really quickly based on what’s happening.”
Restaurant and pub owners said the Curbside KC platform is a good resource to help them keep the cash flow. Lehman said they’re planning to launch a similar database for breweries, wineries, distilleries and liquor stores on Curbside KC.
“I think it’s wonderful. You can go to one website, it can give you all the different options,” McMillian said. “It makes it a lot easier on a consumer, and in these difficult times, anything that can kind of take us back to normalcy in our lives is a good thing, as long as we’re practicing caution, of course.”
The Lenexa Public Market has closed the dining area this week as well. Denise Rendina, city spokeswoman, said that starting Thursday, the market will begin offering a mix of takeout, curbside pickup and delivery services for some merchants. Because the situation is so fluid, the Lenexa Public Market’s website will have the most updated information.
Several restaurant owners in Shawnee Mission said they are continuing to practice sanitation standards for curbside pickup, takeout and delivery services in order to reduce any risk from contact between employees and customers.
Williamson said the local breweries have been banding together, swapping resources and sharing supplies. Many of them are also tapping into Curbside KC and offering gift cards.
“We’re all in this together,” Williamson added. “Almost more than anything else, this crisis has basically continued to bring the Kansas City brewing community together.”
