What I’m Wearing…
* Levi’s 505 jeans…(similar jeans here) also seen here and here
* Gant camel v-neck sweater… this is a super cute alternative! …also seen here…and here
* Faux fur (dusty rose) coat by BB Dakota… this light pink furry coat is adorable! … also seen here – omg I LOVE this faux fur green coat, but it’s more than I want to spend – this coat is a reversible puffer/fur!
* Burgundy bandana as a neck tie
* Barton Perreira sunglasses (I can’t stop wearing these, they’ve been my faves forever now!)
* Brown faux fur lined dr. martens boots
* Louis Vuitton Neverfull MM
* Title: Justin Bieber – Hold On… the hook and chorus (beat) has me up and dancing in seconds!
Tuesday, March 16th marked the one year anniversary of the pandemic lock down for California (and so many other states) and was the day we had to close Dogwood for business. I remember thinking how much it was going to hurt us, not only because St. Patrick’s Day, the following day, is one of our busiest days of the year, but also because we were already smack in the middle of the winter months where we are a bit slower than the rest of the year.
Two weeks later we started offering take-out only and our daily sales paled in comparison, were less than half of our normal daily revenue, and just a fraction of our weekend sales. We did everything to cut our overhead (canceled TV subscriptions, and all entertainment and kept only the lights we needed on daily, among other things) and having only one employee and one owner there every day cut payroll more than half, but we still had all of our utilities and rent due. Our employees all went on unemployment and we as business owners were able to get some assistance as well, but not much.
From the middle of March until the end of May, this is how we operated. It was a real struggle. We didn’t pay rent for two months, but were able to manage everything else and luckily the owners worked with us and all the other businesses in the area to push off those months until the end of our lease/contract.
Then June arrived and California re-opened and we were able open and boy was it a release! We had a stellar month and everyone stayed healthy… and then two days before the 4th of July, another one of our busiest days, they shut us down again. We spent 24 hours building an outdoor patio so we could keep our doors open for the 4th and summer business, since outdoor dining was allowed. Luckily we made it happen and with the addition of the patio, we were also able to serve kids (indoors, we’re 21 and over, but outside we can serve the kiddos!) which was a total bonus and our evenings and nights were pretty busy. We were able to pay our bills and rent even though we were still not hitting our average monthly revenue… and this lasted through summer and into fall, but once winter hit, it was WAY TOO COLD to be able to serve outdoors. Another local brewery set up plastic igloos and many restaurants created plastic tents with heaters to continue to be able to serve.
At that point, we really didn’t have the extra money to be able to set up anything like that and to me it seemed ridiculous! How was being stuck inside a heated plastic tent with zero fresh air circulation any better than being indoors? In fact, it seemed worse to me… like just the perfect place for germs to chill and wait for unsuspecting hosts to infect.
Luckily cases stayed pretty low on the mountain. It definitely went around, but not like it did in big cities and we’ve been able to survive as a business the intense insanity that was 2020…
Fast forward a year to the DAY almost and California suddenly reopened on Sunday, March 14th and we are business as usual. It’s crazy when I look in the cameras and see the place full like it used to be (however, we’re still not even close to max capacity… in fact, there have only been a few occasions where we are at max capacity) but we’re busy to our mountain standards, and while I’m happy as a business owner, as a person who is still pretty terrified of this entire virus, I’m a little bit in awe of how people just go right back to “normal” because the state says we can. (However, many people have been vaccinated, but I have not been yet)
There is and has been always two sides to the pandemic; people practicing complete safety, staying home, not socializing or if so, in very small groups and wearing a mask to run errands (i.e. anywhere – ps. I haven’t even been down the mountain this entire time… wait. I did go to Home Depot once to get supplies for my office renovation) but that’s it! One time down the mountain in over a year!?! Then there is the other side of the spectrum, the people who basically think I’m overreacting. And Chad is one of them. In fact, we’ve had many arguments about it and many days where he returns home and he gets the full questioning from me: did you wear your mask? did you stay 6ft away from everyone? Did you sanitize? And of course he replies YES and of course I know that he did not any of those things, lol. His version of “safe” and my version of “safe” are very different… and boy did it cause a lot of fights last year, I’m not going to lie. I still am very wary of all of this… I mean, I don’t like getting regular sick I definitely don’t want to get COVID sick!
We’re talking about throwing our annual 80s anniversary party at the beginning of April and as much fun as it is, I don’t even really want to go and then have anxiety for two weeks after worrying that I may have caught something!
Anyway… this is all to say that while I’m happy business is almost back to normal, I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever be “normal” again.
Happy Thursday Lovecats!
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