Paradise

moved to online services. A handful of dine-in restaurants that offered a sense of normalcy — Nic’s Restaurant, which opened in the middle of a Pacific Gas & Electric planned outage, and Sophia’s Thai Cuisine — have closed.

“The amount of business difficulty and challenges right now are surpassing our capacity,” said Mark Thorp, who works at the Paradise Ridge Chamber of Commerce and leads the Gold Nugget Museum. “We’re doing the best we can in just holding the businesses afloat.”

What’s open are a handful

of take- out restaurants; grocery stores; pharmacies; gas stations; Hudson’s Appliances, the hardware store, which closed its Chico store but made a point to stay open in Paradise; and a handful of food trucks like Meeho’s. They are mainly serving construction workers working on the rebuild — which, as long as construction is considered an “essential” business by Gov. Gavin Newsom — is still largely moving forward.

Marshall Ely, the CEO of Foothill Mill & Lumber Co., said his employees were still working at the lumber yard, which reopened in January, because he wanted to help rebuild the town his family has long contributed to.

For now, he said, things are OK, but a several month pause would be tough.

“Emotionally, I would like to get through to summer, and get where we need to be with material,” he said. He’s isolating at home, connecting remotely.

Others have had issues working remotely. People who live higher up in the foothills are encountering unreliable internet and cell service.

Thorp said the chamber was working with 3Core and the Butte College Small Business Development Center to find workarounds, but he urged people to contact their carrier with concerns, too.

He’s encountering the problem himself, too: The Gold Nugget Museum,

which had just secured a new location, has closed its doors. Now, workers are struggling to connect to the internet to advance projects.

The traditional Gold Nugget Days, too, were postponed indefinitely. Scarlett Miller, president of the Paradise Horsemen’s Association, has ridden in the parade for the past 30 years — including last year, when the aftershocks of the Camp Fire diminished but did not cancel the event.

“We did not miss a year,” said Miller. “The fire didn’t keep us down but the virus did. … This was going to be our big comeback year, and everything has ground to a halt.”

Carol Stark,

of

Jeannie’s

Consignment, said she was just getting a supply chain re- established in Paradise after her building burned, funneling furnishings to new homes for the 30th year, when she had to close. She called it “the same body blow”.

Mary Nieland, of Attic Treasures Mall on the Skyway, was also celebrating her 29 years of ownership this month. She recalled not only the horror of the fire, but getting through it, too.

“There’s been a lot of up and down, and we’ve always survived,” she said.

She reopened just a few months after the fire, which damaged part of the store and required lots of cleanup. The outpouring of support from the community

surprised her, she said.

“They wanted some normalcy in their lives,” she said. “I’m really anticipating that’s going to happen again. We’re going to be bombarded again, which is great. I’m thinking positive.”

Nicki Jones, the owner of Bobbi’s Boutique and Nic’s Restaurant, also said she was depending on the community solidarity built up during the fire and aftermath to help reopen.

“To see the restaurant as a community hub in some ways, and a place of inspiration, made me feel good,” she said. “It’s a two-way support system.”