Colorado Springs businesses reopening force owners to roll with the punches in the face of an unprecedented challenge.
Demands of a Health Crisis with Businesses Reopening
“Overnight we had to change everything,” says Blandine Mazéran, owner of The French Kitchen. As with many other Colorado Springs small businesses, the COVID-19 crisis gave The French Kitchen a hard choice: Shift to meet the demands of the health crisis or shut down.
According to their website, The French Kitchen is a cooking school, boutique, café, and bakery in one. But when spiking coronavirus cases forced a halt to in-person dining in March, Mazéran and her staff rushed to convert the French Kitchen into a new kind of business.
To start, The French Kitchen nixed its culinary classes. “[It was a] whole part of the business I had to kill. That hurt the most,” says Mazéran. A Frenchwoman by birth, she says, “I didn’t want to lose my business because that’s my baby.”
But she and her staff pushed themselves to change The French Kitchen away from its usual operations of cooking classes and dining, moving toward take away, delivery meals, and selling staple pantry items like flour.
Interactions with Customers
Mazéran says that as a business owner and mother, her busy schedule has never allowed her to interact with customers. But in March, that all changed. The crisis required a whole new perspective on marketing, which Mazéran took on herself.
With businesses reopening, she appreciates interactions with customers, saying, “I get inspired and I get new ideas from people. It’s been exciting because I’ve learned a lot from the Facebook groups we’re on.”
Temporary Closures
The French Kitchen’s systemic changes reflect others in the local food industry. In March, Russ Ware and Yemi Mobolade, co-owners of both The Wild Goose Meeting House and Good Neighbor’s Meeting House, temporarily closed The Wild Goose and consolidated unprepared foods into a market at Good Neighbors.
“We looked at our unique positioning in the middle of a residential neighborhood,” says Ware. “We had a lot of unprepared food to get rid of, so we immediately put it up for sale.”
The market was a hit. According to Ware, “We just slid into that, and it became the vast majority of our business during [the shutdown].” Now that Good Neighbors is open for limited dining in, the market is secondary to the operations of the shop, but Ware predicts that it will be here to stay.
Other businesses have changed products entirely.
Changing Products to Meet Demands
Local company The Courage Cottage went beyond the usual soaps and candles to develop a recipe for highly effective germ gel. “We did a lot of research to see if our germ gel was strong enough,” says Piper Rafal, who operates the company, which was selling product from a booth at American Classics Marketplace, with her mother Vandi. Rafal says that since they began producing it, the germ gel has been one of their best-selling products: “It’s been huge.”
When American Classics Marketplace closed, the Cottage’s booth closed with it. And as craft shows began to cancel, too, Courage Cottage owners came up with a new kind of craft show: After making an appointment on Facebook, customers may visit the Rafal’s own home in Colorado Springs and purchase Courage Cottage products while social distancing.
Says Rafal, “It’s definitely not as great as shows.” While the open house has helped during the slowdown, she admits that more effort spent on marketing might bring in more revenue.
But Rafal adds that a slower year has been a nice break. Though the financial slowdown has been concerning, she likes that she has been able to spend more time with her family.
Repurposed Manufacturing & Distribution Facilities
The Courage Cottage is not alone in producing germ gel. As soon as COVID cases began to spike in Colorado, local distillery Lee Spirits Co. repurposed their substantial manufacturing and distribution facilities to make hand sanitizer.
Ian Lee, who co-founded Lee Spirits Co. with his cousin Nick, says the distillery already had the necessary infrastructure and supplier relationships to start production. “When the world hit the fan and everyone was looking for those raw materials, we were already prepared to procure those materials without delay or hiccup,” says Lee.
Lee Spirits Co. has already produced thousands of gallons of sanitizer and is currently supplying the Colorado Springs Police Department, Memorial and Penrose Hospital Systems, and El Paso County government offices.
Lee insists that the work comes from a desire to make Lee Spirits Co. the best company for the community, but he also points out that this is a difficult time for the distillery. “From a financial perspective this has been a garbage position.” Nevertheless, he adds that, “While we’ve lost revenue, we’ve been able to withstand the storm that’s ravaged our industry right now.”
And while multiple industries have truly been ravaged by the COVID crisis, the necessary business tools to succeed have remained the same: “We’ve been willing to be nimble, agile, and roll with the punches.”
[…] The key to success in a coronavirus world? Flexibility and agility. […]
[…] The key to success in a coronavirus world? Flexibility and agility. […]