After opening the doors of Uncle Vinny’s in downtown Roseboro, owner Jennifer Honeycutt’s Friday started by receiving phone calls — a major change from last week.
“All I have to do now is wait for the phone to ring,” she said while sitting in an empty restaurant with tables on the chairs. “Before, it was setting up the buffet and doing the service station.”
The buffet featuring pizza and salad was a big hit for the restaurant. Now, that part of the business is on hold. This week, Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order to close sit-down service at restaurants because of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Bars were directed to close immediately as well.
“It’s taking away business,” she said about seeing less of her regular customers for dining, in addition to the bar business.
According to rules, restaurant are restricted to carry-out, drive-through, and delivery to make food available while maintaining social distancing.
“It’s crazy,” Honeycutt said. “But it’s better to be safe than sorry. It will be crazy when we can open back up. When we open back up, it’s going to be a full house all the time.”
She had to cut servers, a dishwasher and a few kitchen crew members. As they prepared Friday morning, there was only two people to help her.
“It’s tough operating a three-man crew,” she said.
Although there’s no dine-in options available, the optimistic business owner still appreciates the support she’s receiving from the community when it comes to takeout orders.
“It make us feel great and we appreciate it,” she said about the business going on four years of success. “It’s very important for people to support small businesses such as this because we’re not a fast-food chain. We’re all we have. We’re all family. I’m not a boss. I’m like a sister and a momma.”
Many local restaurants were seating people outside with distance, but Sampson County and state health officials notified them Friday, reminding them it wasn’t permitted. An order of Abatement of Imminent Hazard issued by the Secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services stated that seating areas of restaurants and bars constitute an imminent hazard for the spread of COVID-19. Restaurants were ordered to close all seating areas — inside and outside — immediately.
“Restaurant staff are not permitted to serve patrons indoors or in the outdoor seating area, and all areas of North Carolina are subject to mass gathering restrictions and social distancing guidelines,” health officials stated. “If a restaurant has outdoor seating, onsite consumption in the outdoor seating area is not permitted pursuant to the Order of Abatement.”
Trey Cummings, owner of Ribeyes Steakhouse of Clinton, was one of several business owners disappointment after receiving the notice Friday. Overall, people not being allowed inside or at the bar is hurting his business and the people who rely on it for a paycheck.
“I’m about to have to lay off 20 great people,” Cummings said. “It’s not what we want to do, but we’ve never been through anything like this before. The worst part about it is that I have to let go of a lot of great people who haven’t done anything wrong.”
With less than 10 people working, business is slow and takeout orders are not making up for the business Ribeyes usually gets. Cummings estimated that businesses has gone down by 80 percent after the governor’s executive order.
“We’ll just have to wait and see how long we’re going to be shut down,” Cummings said. “There’s nothing we can do really. Hopefully the order comes to an end this month. We’ll see.”
Personally, Cummings feels that the closure was blown out of proportion, while comparing reported cases of people infected with COVID-19 versus the entire population of the state, which has 10 million people. Grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores were exempt from the order that closed restaurants and bars because of concerns that COVID-19 may spread. Cummings disagreed with that and said he felt that restaurants are being picked on.
“If you think about it, restaurants are safer than a lot of people’s own kitchens,” he said. “By law, before the virus, we’ve been washing our hands before and after everything. By law, every table is sanitized after every guest leaves. By law, everything is wiped down and constantly kept clean, then sanitized.
“Most people aren’t in that habit, even at your house, if you have a guest come over and you’re not in the habit of sanitizing your table after every time somebody gets away from it. Then you have a higher likelihood of coming in contact than you would in here. We could have taken some tables out to create some space had we been giving the option, but we weren’t given the option. It was just a knee-jerk reaction.”
He also discussed the nearby Lowe’s Home Improvement, with a parking lot full of cars.
“Look at Lowe’s over there, they’re packed,” Cummings said. “Do they have any sanitation measures in place? No. It’s OK, but us without sanitation measures isn’t OK.”
Like many other small business owners in Sampson County, Cummings stressed the importance of community members supporting hometown restaurants by ordering take-out as an alternative to fast-food chains.
“I don’t want to pick on any of them, but those chains have restaurants in other states that are still open, so they have revenue coming in,” he said. “We don’t. We don’t have another restaurant in another state that’s still open. We’re here and we’re shut down. Everybody needs to go to little mom-and-pop spots.”
In communities such as Sampson, the homegrown businesses are vital to the economy and the daily lives of people such as Cummings and his wife, Kristen, who is starting chemotherapy treatments Monday.
“It sucks, but we’ll try to get through it the best way we can until we open back up,” Cummings said about his restaurant that celebrated a 14th celebration in February. “That’s always a concern, but if it dries up long enough, we won’t be able to open back up.”
Along with restaurants, many local retail stores are facing challenges too. One of them is Rebecca’s of Clinton, which recently had to cancel a fashion show with about 100 people expected to show up to see the Sympli spring line.
“We’re trying to reach out to customers and work one on one with people,” said owner Rebecca Brown. “We invited people who signed up to come, maybe one or two at a time, just to keep that social distancing and not have too big of a gathering, but still be able to salvage a little bit of that.”
Like many public places, Rebecca’s of Clinton is following advice of health officials to have 10 or less people in the store. With foot traffic being down because of COVID-19, it hasn’t been enforced yet. But orders are still placed through phone calls, text messages, and online through the website for pick-up. In the meantime, Brown said they’ll continue to sanitize, take precautions and do their part to prevent the spread of the virus.
“We have been sanitizing for years,” Brown said. “We keep our keyboards and our countertops wiped down all the time with Clorox wipes, even the door handles. Even when there’s not a virus, we still so that. We are keeping everything sanitized and being smart about it and doing the social distancing.”
In downtown Clinton, Simply NC is taking similar actions. After each interaction with customers, owner Deborah Thompson rubs a squirt of sanitizer on her hands. Like Rebecca’s, the business is also seeing less people at the shop, which includes a sitting area available for the public.
“People would come in here with study groups and clients,” she said. “All of that pretty much stopped. We’re basically not encouraging anybody to come in, sit down and just be here, just to be on the safe side.”
During this time of year, she’s also losing business because of cancellations and people ordering less gift baskets of North Carolina-made products for special celebrations. Simply NC encourages people to call in coffee orders, so they don’t have to come in the store and stay.
“It’s a scary time for everybody,” she said. “I think as long as we work together to try to be as safe as possible, what we’re doing right now, I think is OK — with all of our social distancing and keeping everything clean as possible and germ-free as possible.”
Like many other small business owners, she worries, but she’s also optimistic.
“It’s going to bite everybody before it’s all over with, but we have faith that we’re going to get through it,” Thompson said. “We’ll take it one day at a time.”
Through tough times, town officials and economic leaders throughout Sampson County are encouraging business owners to find resources and visit websites such the City of Clinton’s website at www.cityofclintonnc.com for assistance of statewide initiatives.
Mary Rose, manager of the Clinton Main Street program, and other members recently received a notice from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina with a list of resources to help. The Main Street program is contacting small businesses in downtown Clinton and throughout the city so they can be placed on a list for future notifications through email.
Anyone interested may join the list by calling the city’s Planning Department at 910-299-4904.
“The Clinton Main Street program, staff and community members are reaching out to the businesses to give them encouragement and we would also encourage our citizens to reach out to those same businesses,” Rose said. “If it’s a restaurant, they can call in, perhaps to get pick-up orders. Also, as people feel comfortable and safe, because everyone is different, we would like them to continue to support our local businesses, perhaps by purchasing gift cards, online shopping when available, and just try to shop local and small as much as they can and that would be very appreciated during these challenging times.”
Thompson expressed how the small mom-and-pop stores should receive support as the nation finds a way to end the COVID-19 problem.
“We are the people who support our local schools and community, more so than the big box stores do,” she said. “Whenever we’re approached by young people selling yearbook ads and stuff like that and local events selling plate tickets, we’re the one supporting that. So we need everybody else to support us so we can stay in business. We don’t have the resources that the larger stores do to absorb losses.”
