Trish Gleason of Huntsville reopened her shops April 30, five minutes after Alabama’s stay-at-home order ended.
Since then, sales at University Pickers and Redbird Boutique and Gifts are up over pre-Covid days by as much as 20%, Gleason said. Employees are wearing face masks, even if many customers aren’t.
“It’s just interesting to see how some people are over it and ready to get back to life, and luckily some of the states are allowing us to do just that,” she said. “The mask-wearing is how we were gauging people’s comfort. When we first opened up, 90% of people who came into the store had masks on. Now it’s less than 25%.”
In fact, Alabamians appear to be embracing reopening as much as anyone, by some measures. Restaurants are seating 70% fewer dine-in customers than they were a year ago, according to the OpenTable booking service. However, compare that with the 100% decline a few weeks ago. Only Oklahoma and South Carolina have recaptured more dine-in business among 37 states and Washington, D.C., according to the company.
Several hundred miles west, Tracy Vaught worries about how to enforce social distancing and mask-wearing at her four Houston-area restaurants.
That’s one reason she’s reopened only two for dine-in service: Hugo’s, a Mexican spot named after her husband, and an American bistro called Backstreet Café. She’s equipping employees with masks, gloves and sanitation stations and has trained them on distancing. All employees will have to test negative for the virus. She’s also placing masks at the entrance for patrons and asking them to wear them while walking to their tables or to the restroom.
So far, everyone’s complying. This being Texas, though, someone’s bound to object, and she’s decided not to make a fuss.
“The wild card is our guests,” Vaught said. “We can control how we do things and what our expectations of each other are. But, it’s the general public that you can’t coach.”
In Davis, California, Erin Arnold feels likes she’s doing five times the work for a quarter of the revenue at the Avid Reader.
She and her husband, a lawyer, bought the 30-year-old bookstore in February and watched sales nosedive with California’s shut-down. Sales are 25% of what they were before the virus hit, despite surging online orders. The couple also owns Avid and Co. toy store down the street. It has fared better in part because quarantined people are devouring puzzles.