Why some bar owners are waiting to reopen

In response to increasing cases of COVID-19 in Arizona, on Monday, June 29, Gov. Doug Ducey put an executive order in place to shut down bars once again.

A previous order that re-opened restaurants included a loophole that allowed bars that also served food to open as well. Some Arizona bars bolstered existing food menus, while others stocked up on chips, pretzels and peanuts to sell in order to take advantage of the technicality.

But as customers returned to restaurants and bars, along with other social activities, the numbers of positive cases of COVID-19 and deaths caused by the virus took an upward swing.

On Wednesday, June 24, Arizona reported 59,974 cases of COVID-19. By Wednesday, July 1, Arizona reported 84,092 cases, an increase of more than 24,000 cases in just one week. A few days later, on Monday, July 6, Arizona’s cases surpassed 100,000.

Now some bar owners are zooming in on the intricacies of the language from the governor and the Department of Liquor to find ways to keep their dining rooms open again. Others are looking for ways to create takeout menus or are using the time to remodel and reinvent their businesses.

For some Valley bar owners, however, there’s no point in reopening only to have to possibly close again over health or financial concerns. Since the start of the pandemic in March, high-profile metro Phoenix bars including Linger Longer Lounge, Bitter & Twisted, Little Rituals, Century Grand and Undertow have kept their doors shut in efforts to keep COVID-19 at bay.

Why some bar owners decided to shut down

For months now some of Arizona’s most prominent bar owners have held out on reopening, saying the benefits don’t outweigh the risks.

Linger Longer Lounge co-owner Jade Noble has remained adamant her business will remain shut down — no takeout, no cocktails to go and no staff at work.

The decision to close came at a time when business was booming, Noble says. But social distancing in the small space was almost impossible, so the ownership team decided to close. Days later, Ducey implemented an executive order that shut down bars, and Noble has kept the doors closed ever since.

Across town, bar owner Ross Simon closed Bitter & Twisted and Little Rituals on March 16, three days before Ducey’s order. Shortly after closing, Simon told The Arizona Republic he decided to shut down in effort to protect his staff.

“I couldn’t sleep asking my staff to interact with people,” Simon said.

Three months later, the dining rooms of his high profile downtown bars are still closed.

“When we closed there were 23 cases and now there’s 40,000, with two or 3,000 more cases every day, it’s nuts,” Simon says.

Jason Asher, co-owner of Undertow and Century Grand cocktail bars near Arcadia, credits the recent spike in cases to “terrible” leadership in the state.

“Had the state been shut down properly, we might be able to gradually reopen,” Asher says.

‘One step up and two steps back’

The spike in COVID-19 cases and the inconsistent messaging from state leadership are only two of the reasons Asher and his team have decided to keep Century Grand and Undertow closed until at least August. Another important factor is money.

In order for his staff to be making more money than they can currently collect from unemployment benefits, his bars would have to operate at 70% occupancy, Asher says.

So until the CARES Act, which provides an extra $600 in unemployement benefits, runs out on July 31, it makes more financial sense for his staff to stay home, Asher says.

“We are not in the position were we are forced to reopen,” Asher says about the need to provide work for the company’s staff. “But we are going to hit that point at the end of July.”

At Linger Longer Lounge, although the number of staff impacted is much smaller, the economics also work in favor of staying closed. With limited capacity, the operational costs of opening the bar would outweigh the potential profit, says Emmanuel “Manny” Tripodis, who co-owns the bar with Noble and Cal Cronin.

“It’s kind of addition by subtraction,” Tripodis says.

The Linger Longer Lounge owners saved money by committing to closing for a couple of months, Tripodis explained. They didn’t keep the lights on in hopes of reopening, but rather negotiated with the utility company and their landlord to suspend some accounts and temporarily cancel others to make monthly operating costs as minimal as possible.

The bar’s owners also received a Paycheck Protection Program loan, which allowed them to pay any staff members who did not qualify for unemployment benefits.

“It’s not pressing that we have open right away,” Tripodis says.

Waiting is something he wished the governor had enforced across the state so that many bars and restaurants wouldn’t see second closures due to positive cases.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is to wait another couple weeks when the recovery is going to take a year or more. It’s maddening,” he says. “It feels like we are taking one step up and two steps back.”

How the bars are staying afloat while closed

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While their usually-busy bars are closed, each of the business owners is taking the time to innovate and improve in his or her own way.

While many bars and restaurants around the Valley turned to takeout cocktails, at Century Grand, the team focused on selling bottles of whiskey, rum and other cocktail essentials. Each week, the team hosts virtual happy hours during which they show viewers how to create a cocktail with the liquor and ingredients they sell.

“We are selling booze out the back door and it’s enough to pay our overhead,” Asher says.

Plus the happy hours “bridge the gap a little” between the team and their customers, he adds.

Eventually, however, after customers continued to ask for takeout drinks, Asher now plans to release small amounts of bottled cocktails that will be available starting July 9. The experimental cocktails serve between three and four drinks.

At Bitter & Twisted, Simon and his team took time to figure out how to safely restart operations. After months of being closed, Bitter & Twisted now offers a small food menu of dim sum and canned cocktails, only available for takeout.

“We are still trying to continue balancing what is safe and responsible,” Simon says.

But offering takeout was not as simple as firing up the old menu, Simon says. Many of the original dishes required a lot of prep and, therefore, lots of staff.

“We had to basically throw the playbook out the window and reinvent how to operate our kitchen safely,” Simon says.

The drinks had to be changed to be stable in a can. He also changed the bar’s hours to include lunch and invested in a canning machine. Simon hopes the new takeout program will generate enough money to sustain the bar into the future and push off any opening date until he feels comfortable

“This year is about survival,” he says. “This year, for me, is to pay my team, pay my suppliers and hopefully pay my rent.”

But even as remaining closed puts financial pressure on the business, the risk of reopening and anyone contracting COVID-19 is just not worth it, Simon says. Currently focused on the takeout menu, Simon has not set a goal date for reopening.

“As of right now we are quite happy being closed,” he says.

What changes to expect when they reopen

When these Arizona bars do reopen, they may look a little different inside. Simon plans to take away the seats at the bar inside Bitter & Twisted to limit the amount of time customers are in close proximity with bartenders. Linger Longer Lounge may open with a new name, something that the new owners had planned to do since last summer, and possibly an expanded space.

But the biggest potential change could be at Century Grand. The bar, which opened in October is made up of three parts, an immersive train car bar, a whiskey tasting shop and a front bar and restaurant, complete with dim sum carts serving small delicacies.

But the food, Asher says, will not be coming back.

“Recovering is strategically making decisions to help your business in the future,” Asher says. “It just wasn’t financially in the cards to maintain it.”

Plus the dim sum-style service, during which servers would push carts around the dining room enticing diners to try different dishes, isn’t feasible any more, Asher says.

He and his team plan to return to what they know best and increase the focus on cocktails. The whiskey tasting room called The Grey Hen will also undergo a transformation to make it a more suitable space for cocktails to be made and enjoyed.

Across the parking lot at Undertow, shields will be installed between the bartenders and the bar so that customers can still use the already limited seating in the tiny space. Both locations will maintain 50% capacity upon opening,

Asher says.

‘We have to change’

Whether keeping their bars closed for financial or health reasons, all of the bar owners are longing for the day they reopen. How long it will take to get back to normal, however, remains unknown.

At Linger Longer Lounge, the initial plan was to reopen on July 1, provided June went well. However, with the ongoing spike in cases, that date has been further pushed out.

“We would love to be open,” Noble says. “But it’s really dangerous for your staff. I wouldn’t feel protected or safe working so I wouldn’t want to ask anyone else to.”

Tripodis guesses it may be a year or so before everything completely returns to normal, both inside the bar and out.

Undertow and the train car Platform 18 at Century Grand rely on their small size for the intimate, immersive experience they provide. But despite the bars’ small size, Asher is sure customers will be eager to return once the time is right.

“I don’t think there’s an ounce of doubt,” Asher says.

For Simon, he says things will “absolutely” get back to normal, if there is a vaccine or “long term treatment.”

“Humans are an incredible, adaptable species and there are glimmers of hope,” he says. “We just have to be smart, we have to change.”

How long it will take before normalcy returns,however, Simon hesitates to guess.

“There’s a lot more qualified people than me and they don’t know the answer,” he says.