Facing the pandemic

Many in Birmingham service industry adapt, survive despite COVID-19

Marsha Mims has always wanted to own a dance club. She remembers going out to bars in Birmingham when she had just turned 21 years old and having fun with her friends on the dance floor and wanted to give that same experience to the younger population in Birmingham, Mims said.

She started working on opening Electra, a woman-owned bar in Lakeview, in mid-2019. The landlord gave her six months to move into their new space, so she went to work. She said the bar was named Electra after the famous “Divinity of Light” statue in downtown Birmingham. “We were like, ‘Heck, yeah. It’s a woman-owned business. She’s a goddess,’ I was all into it,” Mims said.

Electra received its liquor license on March 7 and was eyeing a possible opening on St. Patrick’s Day but those plans were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with all bars being shut down by the city the day before St. Patrick’s Day.

“It was a blow,” Mims said. “I was like ‘Yay, this is the perfect building, this is exactly what I want,’ and I started building out. By the time January or February rolls around, it was like ‘Oh, my gosh, Covid’s happening.’”

Virtually every owner of a small business in America likely experienced that same realization at some point in early 2020.

And when the nationwide lockdown began in mid-March 2020, those business owners had to find ways to adapt and survive during a once-a-century public health crisis that brought an economic crisis along with it.

Operators in the service and hospitality business were hit especially hard, since what they do is based on lots of people eating and drinking and hanging out with each other in close quarters.

Iron City Ink spoke to several of these local business people about what they did over the last year and a half to keep running the businesses that they love.

Mims has been in the service industry for several years and owns multiple bars with her husband, Phillip, including Marty’s PM in Five Points South and Marty’s GM in Irondale with other bars in the works. Mims said that Electra is special for her because it’s always been her dream to open an EDM bar that was solely hers until she gladly bought her one of her longtime employees, Cortini “Tini” Steenbock, former general manager at Electra and Marty’s GM, as a 25% owner.

”I knew I wanted neon, graphics, art and all this fun stuff where all these kids could come and have so much fun,” Mims said. “My flame has been burnt out a little bit because we’re trying to book all these awesome artists and get people out here and dancing and have a really good time.”

Mims said her dream to have an EDM bar had to be adjusted slightly and is still figuring out what her vision looks like. When Electra finally opened in August 2020, Mims said, she wanted it opened the right way, which meant providing a space that was both safe and socially distanced.

She converted an 8-9 car parking lot into a patio area to abide by COVID-19 guidelines. “We wouldn’t even let people inside,” Mims said. “They could come inside and get a drink and then they had to walk right back out.”

‘So many new things’

Similar to Mims, Laney DeJonge — co-owner of Rojo in Highland Park — feels like she has a completely different restaurant than when Rojo first opened almost 20 years ago. DeJonge said that her and her staff have had to completely rethink how they do business.

To adapt to COVID-19, she had to quickly establish delivery services for Rojo, decide how they were going to handle opening the inside of the restaurant and find cheaper services.

“Not only are you having to do all those extra things to try and find extra ways to make money, but then you’ve had to change how you’ve operated your restaurants,” DeJonge said.

DeJonge said she dealt with a lot of uncertainty during the beginning of the pandemic because she wasn’t sure of the best way to keep people and how to prevent Rojo from going out of business.

“It was a lot easier once other people started making decisions because right at the very beginning, we just didn’t know what to do,” DeJonge said. “We were like ‘Let’s just clean everything.’”

Half of her employees left to collect unemployment and finish school, she said, but she had enough employees to keep from being understaffed. What was also helpful for DeJonge were the resources that were available to restaurants for financial relief,

she said.

“It seemed like there were a lot of people trying to help restaurants but it was almost overwhelming because there were so many new things that we’ve never done before like going to the SBA site and learning about disaster stuff,” DeJonge said.

‘An issue prior to the pandemic’

The pandemic shined a spotlight on several already-known weaknesses within the service industry, said Cornell Wesley, the director of the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity for the city of Birmingham.

The biggest two weaknesses that stick out to him, Wesley said, are labor shortages and livable wage rates within the service industry.

Wesley said unemployment benefits provided by the government would give people more money than they would normally get in a week, which removed the incentive for people to return to work or caused them to find other ways of income to match what they were getting from the government.

“You see responses in the food and beverage industry increasing the hourly rate, which is a good thing,” Wesley said. “It’s a thing that should take place and something that should’ve been a priority prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has really put a spotlight on what it takes for people to live.”

He said that some restaurants have resorted to sign-on bonuses for new hires and former employees. Wesley cited Birmingham eatery Urban Cookhouse as an example. The restaurant announced on Facebook in April it would enter new hires in a drawing for a $5,000 prize.

“Birmingham is not any different in terms of the impact but it’s definitely felt in those two areas, from fighting for the same bodies and people now trying to incentivize people to return to work via increased wages or sign-on bonuses,’ Wesley said.

Though the pandemic has been a challenge for everyone, Wesley said, it highlighted a lot of issues that are starting to be addressed by both the service industry and the government.

“It’s somewhat of a pickle but it’s not an unmanageable one, it’s prompted the response needed in order for us to level-set and, as those industries continue to grow and expand, truly make certain that they prioritize wages and quality-of-life amenities for the people they want to employ,” Wesley said.

You see responses in the food and beverage industry increasing the hourly rate, which is a good thing. It’s a thing that should take place and something that should’ve been a priority prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has really put a spotlight on what it takes for people to live.

Cornell Wesley

One man coffee bar

Will Harvill, owner of Bizarre the Coffee Bar, didn’t have help with his business like Mims when the pandemic first started. He opened three months before the pandemic with a full staff but had to send everyone home when the pandemic started.

“We were literally trying to find our way and figure out what the business prior to us did that worked and what didn’t work and then boom, the pandemic hit,” Harvill said.

After contemplating whether he should close the bar, Harvill said, he made the decision to stay open but furloughed his staff because he didn’t want to put their health in jeopardy, leaving him to run the business by himself for four months.

Harvill said Bizarre was one of the only eateries downtown which caused a lot of downtown residents and surrounding businesses to gravitate towards the restaurant. “

There was nobody downtown in the morning time which is detrimental to my business because we sell coffee,” Harvill said. “We started opening at 1 p.m. and, at that time, most people that were used to being out just had to get out of the house during that time of the day.”

Harvill said that while his staff were gone, it was up to him to keep the business profitable and the doors open.

“It was crazy,” he said. “I was making coffee, I was making sandwiches and drinking beverages, I was the musical DJ. I was just doing whatever had to be done to stay afloat.”

Harvill said when business increased, they were able to hire more people and get back to the “swing” of improving their business prior to the pandemic but he still feels like they aren’t operating at full capacity .

“Nobody’s spending what they used to spend, nobody has near the amount of people they had before the pandemic started,” Harvill said. “If you’re doing good right now, you’re operating at less than 70% of their previous capacity.”

'We've been blessed'

Rob McDaniel is the co-owner of Helen, a restaurant named after his grandmother that he and his wife Emily opened on Second Avenue North downtown in August 2020.

The timing of that opening during the pandemic was “not ideal,” he said.

However, McDaniel and his wife “decided to forge forward and remain faithful,” he said.

And business has been “very good,” McDaniel said. “we’ve been blessed.”

Like other businesses, Helen “pivoted,” he said.

“We created a Lunch Club to promote lunch business,” McDaniel said. “We offered holiday beverages to-go while that was available in our area, and of course offered curbside pick-up like many businesses are still doing today.”

‘I’m Not Going Anywhere’

At the beginning of the pandemic, Shu Shop — a bar and eatery on Third Avenue North downtown — closed its doors and immediately started taking to-go orders only.

Adeeba Khan, Shu Shop co-owner, said that adapting to the pandemic was strange for her but she did what she had to do for her business to survive, including lowering their seating capacity and seating each guest instead of letting customers seat themselves like normal.

“We applied for all of the loans that everybody offered and immediately figured out new schedules for all of our employees and gave out checks the second we got a PPP loan to make sure all of our employees were OK,” Khan said. “You have to be able to adapt in this business or you’re not going to get very far.”

Despite the pandemic, Khan said, business wasn’t affected much because of residents that live downtown and workers in the service industry that stopped by at night after work. She said Shu Shop was geared towards people in the service industry, which is why they stay open later.

Mims said a big part of Electra’s success has been her staff and the atmosphere that they offer. The staff sets the tone for what kind of people come to her bar, Mims said, which builds a comfortable atmosphere for her customers.

“No shade to any other Birmingham bar owners but my staff is absolutely incredible,” Mims said.

She said when she hires new employees, she makes sure they understand the vision for her bar so they can carry it out when she’s not there.

“Your customers personify your bar, that’s what happens,” Mims said. “So if I create a safe space for the right customers then they’re going to wind up personifying what really makes them feel comfortable. My staff knows that if you mess with somebody or somebody’s butt gets grabbed, that’s it, you’re not allowed in my bar anymore,” Mims said.

Mims said that though she and her staff aren’t sure how COVID-19 pandemic will affect them in the future, she doesn’t see Electra closing anytime soon. “We’re still here,” Mims said. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m in it for the long haul.”