Thriving amid the struggle
While some smaller businesses have been battered by virus, others have seen a boom
Small businesses were devastated in 2020.
They’ve pivoted so frequently to deal with state-mandated shutdowns, new customer needs and pandemic safety protocols that many are not sure what direction they’re facing anymore.
Nine months into the coronavirus crisis, more than a quarter remain closed, at least temporarily, from Opportunity Insights, a research group at Harvard University, shows.
But for some industries, it has been a banner year. Small-business owners serving customers who are trapped at home, shopping online and seeking outdoor adventures have tallied record sales.
Success during a crisis can be uncomfortable.
“I can’t say enough that it’s bittersweet,” said Sunshine Foss, owner of Happy Cork, a Brooklyn, N.Y., wine shop whose sales soared as other businesses in her neighborhood closed down.
Here are small businesses that beat the pandemic odds and are thriving — and even hiring — as they move into 2021.
Happy Cor
Wine shop — Brooklyn When Foss and her husband, Remo, opened their wine store in March 2019 on a lightly trafficked side street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, hours sometimes would pass without a sale.
“We would stand on the street and beg people to come in and try our stuff,” she said.
The pandemic changed that. As the city locked down in the spring, customers streamed in for wine by the bottle and by the case.
In April, sales doubled. Sales jumped again in the summer: As protests over k police brutality and systemic racism rocked the city and nation, demand for products from Black-owned businesses — Happy Cork’s specialty — increased.
“I couldn’t keep Black Girl
Magic on the shelves,” Foss said, referring to a California wine collection created by two sisters. “I’m so happy now that there’s huge customer demand, but it’s bittersweet that it took all of this to get attention on these brands.”
Esrever Wines, a label created by three longtime friends from Queens, has been one of the beneficiaries. The pandemic complicated production for the company because the California winery that produces its blends is short on staff, but demand has soared, and Happy Cork is among the business’s top retail locations, said Tyshemia Ladson, one of Esrever’s founders.
A loan of $1,875 from the federal Paycheck Protection Program helped the shop through the pandemic’s early days. Foss doubled her staff this year, to eight employees, and she has been happily surprised to have shoppers from all over the country stopping by, often drawn in by her prolific social media posts. Her business has now blown past the sales projections she mapped out when it opened.
“A lot of stores that open in our neighborhoods have bulletproof glass; you can’t touch the bottles,” Foss said. “I wanted something that was an intimate shopping experience; I wanted the store to smell really good and look really pretty and be comfortable. We have pricing that works for everyone. You can get a great bottle for $8 from a brand you would never have known about.”
American Bicycle Group
Bicycle manufacturer —
Chattanooga, Tenn. When the pandemic took hold in late March, sales at Peter Hurley’s high-end bicycle business collapsed.
Hurley furloughed employees while his management team developed safety protocols and tried to adapt. But the pause turned out to be brief: A month later, after reconfiguring the factory floor and turning conference rooms into production space, the company resumed production.
A $409,000 loan in April from the Paycheck Protection Program helped turn the tide. Hurley used the cash to bring back and pay his workers, which freed up revenue to increase the direct-sales retailer’s online marketing.
By May, orders were picking up, and a sustained boom began in June. The company’s sales typically peak by July and then taper off; this year, the autumn lull didn’t happen.
The company now has 67 workers — 30 more than be
fore the pandemic — and its highest revenue since Hurley bought the business 13 years ago. American Bicycle Group specializes in custom-built road, trail and triathlon bikes that start around $2,500; Hurley attributes the sales spike to customers spending more time outdoors and to passionate riders deciding it was time for an upgrade.
Daniel Medina Díaz, a triathlete who lives in Benton Harbor, Mich., had been coveting a bike from the company’s Quintana Roo line since he encountered the brand at last year’s USA Triathlon National Championship. A Labor Day sale finally knocked the price down enough for him to take the plunge.
“I love the texture of the carbon fiber and the way they paint the bikes to look like a race car,” said Medina Díaz, who hopes to debut his new bike at a race in Tempe, Arizona, in April.
Hurley is waiting to see if this year’s sales boost will last.
“Is this the new normal? I’ve given that a lot of thought, and I really have no idea,” he said.
CG&S Design-Build Construction and design
company — Austin
Dolores Guerrero Davis walks into her office each morning and looks at the oversize whiteboard that maps out her company’s pipeline of projects.
“My brain just explodes,” she said. “It’s so much work.”
That is not what Davis expected.
Even before the pandem
ic, national indicators warned the remodeling business was expected to slow in 2020. So when Austin closed nonessential businesses in March, she prepared for hard times.
She got a $641,000 loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, which ensured that CG&S — started by her parents in 1957 — stayed open and that none of its 35 employees was laid off.
Then the unexpected happened: Homeowners in Austin and across the country realized their homes
needed an update, pushing construction firms into overdrive. CG&S received a surge of inquiries, particularly for its design services. And they were not from dreamers; customers were ready to lay out cash.
“I think everyone is spending time at home and recognizing that their space doesn’t work,” Davis said. “The kids have been home from school since March in our market, and I think it got people thinking about their homes and how they function.”
Today, CG&S has twice as
much design business as it ever had, and many clients are hiring the company’s construction crews. Davis, who owns the business with her husband, Stewart, hired several new designers and two more project managers.
For Matt and Denise Chumlea, the timing finally was right to redo the kitchen in their 1940s bungalow. They had remodeled the rest of the house but were putting off the expense of their dream kitchen, with a 300-bottle wine cellar, high-end appliances, a mud
room and more.
When Denise Chumlea learned she was pregnant, they considered making just upgrades — then decided to go big.
“If we’re in for a penny, let’s be pregnant in COVID and do a big kitchen remodel at the same time,” Matt Chumlea said.
They found CG&S through a sign Denise Chumlea spotted in a neighbor’s yard.
“They were able to take my ideas, the vision in my head, and just bring them out,” Matt Chumlea said.