FROM BURGERS TO BEER COVID’S MEANT ALL OARS IN WATER FOR BUSINESS
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Business concerns about COVID lockdowns are real.
Thankfully Arvin Gumlati hasn’t had any corona virus cases at his Harvey’s/Swiss Chalet restaurant with all his many safety protocols for staff and customers.
“It’s safe to come here.”
But he’s only doing drive-thru service, because he can’t have indoor-dining or takeout.
“I’m not doing anywhere near what I was before COVID.”
He said “I don’t know where everybody is going, but I think the people that are struggling are the ones that are trying to make ends meet. Which is anything to do with retail, anything to do with service. Anything to do with providing a product to a customer directly.
“If you’re doing things online, and all that stuff, some of those businesses have been going skyrocketing since COVID started.
“But when it comes to having a space where people have to walk in to, those are the businesses that are getting hurt.”
He said “I’m just doing the best I can with the hand I was dealt.”
Gumlati has owned the restaurant on Muskoka Road at the south end of Gravenhurst’s main street for five years as of December.
And after seeing a drop in business when COVID first hit last spring, he said after August it “stabilized” and the burger and chicken business has been “pretty good for the winter so far.”
But when the province locked down after Christmas, he said January was again “a little slow.”
“Comparatively from the last four years January was not the same as it was before.”
But overall, he says he’s doing well as can be expected with COVID and his business is relatively good — “as it is with most businesses in town,” he adds.
Gumlati remains optimistic, saying as long as people do things like “using hand sanitizers and keeping a safe distance from everybody in the public, then I think we should be fine as a society.”
Meanwhile, he still has online ordering, curbside pick-up and delivery 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
You can pre-order at Swisschalet.ca and with the Swiss Chalet app. Or go to Harveys.ca and use the Harveys app. All Harvey’s orders are prepaid only and will come with DoorDash coming to town, he said.
It’s been a difficult 2020 for most business and 2021 isn’t looking a lot better after two months and now another lockdown.
Winter carnivals and festivals, hockey tournaments and concerts that businesses rely on to get them through normal down times are cancelled this year.
Even are far as in to summer.
The Gravenhurst Chamber of Commerce will do its virtual Car Show again in June, after a hugely successful first year.
“We’d prefer to do it live, but we had 5,000 people visit our site,” said director Sandy Lockhart.
She said while many businesses “like contractors, grocers and drug stores have done well with more people around,” it’s the small shops that are “hardest hit.”
“Gyms and hair stylists have really struggled. They can’t pivot.”
Luckily only a few businesses succumbed early on last spring, like Muskoka Billy’s restaurant at the Wharf.
“If they were struggling, COVID probably put them out of business.”
But Lockhart said “many on the main street have been pretty resilient.”
“They’re doing things. Not just crossing their fingers.
“They’re being innovative, like Judy Terry at Muskoka Bay Clothing and Kim Barnes at Farmer’s Daughters, who have new websites.”
They have to be.
Oar restaurant owner Robbie Irvine says the popular pub dining room has had to change its business model “eight times” as they’ve moved in an out of orange, red and now grey zones.
“Nobody follows it like business owners.”
Surprisingly, she hopes the province doesn’t move them out of the lockdown too soon.
She’d still like to have a little more than two weeks though to adjust to this new business reality, norm or whatever it’s being called these days.
“There’s not much tolerance left” from business, she said, adding she believes the pandemic will linger longer.
“It’s confusing for customers,” who she said “have been super supportive” with their loyalty.
“It would be easier to duck and run,” she said.
But she said the Oar offers “dependability and jobs.”
“Staff have mortgages and utilities to pay.”
A year ago the Oar had 22 staff and now it’s down to 9, as it can only offer takeout and its catering business run by son Ian.
At least for this week.
She said early on she and her husband, Alain, set staff and customers as pandemic priorities.
“We said we have a building and we can make it restaurant, a take-out, a catering centre … whatever we need.”
With all the zoning in and out, “it’s pushed us to do a little more.”
She admits there’s a been “a drop off,” but they’ve been creative and adaptive.
It’s that “ingenuity” that has sustained them the past year.
Who knew a year ago, let-alone years before they’d be operating as they are.
Or that the province would give them a boost by allowing them to sell take-out wine and cans of beer off their menu to be included in pick-up orders, she said.
But is that a sustainable business model?
“No,” Irvine quickly responded.
“There’s no playbook for this.”
That’s meant leaning more heavily into the more intimate catering side of the business, too.
She said “catering was on the cusp of great demand” before all this. They’ve got a wedding for 250 booked for 2023.
In the meantime, those small dinner servings have helped feed them in between times when the restaurant could have just 10 people sit inside at tables set only for only four.
Then The Oar was “crazy busy” with New Year’s and Valentine’s Day parties.
“It was all-in,” she said, with the addition of flowers from Blooming Muskoka for pick-up as part of the packages.
Irvine said “you have to be flexible” — as in all oars in the water.
More so since catering to the Muskoka fleet last summer sunk beneath the waves as the province anchored the ships early on and put a limit on the Wenonah’s touring capacity when they did eventually gradually set sail under diesel power.
Business whether on the boats or on the main street will again be a challenge for the foreseeable future.
It’s the same story across Muskoka as small businesses struggle with the daily challenge of sink of swim COVID commerce.
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