Business as Unusual
Courage. Strength. Grace. To successfully navigate the waters of small business, owners need vast quantities of each, and that’s on the good days. Cape Cod hadn’t even begun to shed the cobwebs of its winter slumber when the entire world stopped. Businesses shuttered, events were cancelled, school systems closed, and we were all urged to avoid gatherings with smaller and smaller numbers. It’s as if something threw the economy into “Park” as it was going 70 miles per hour down the highway. Leaving all of us, workers and owners alike, to pick up the pieces of the suddenly shattered world around us. With strongly urged social distancing and stay-at-home directives, many of us were forced to pick up those pieces alone. Gone were the simple gestures of a handshake or a hug that we used to tell one another “we’re all in this together.”
Cape Cod has not been spared as the novel coronavirus has marched across the globe. Guidelines and suggestions became mandates and orders as restrictions were placed on businesses. It started on St. Patrick’s Day when restaurants and bars across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were forced to close to customers in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. The financial wound was quick, to the bone, and the pain as sharp as a gouty foot. The unemployment ranks swelled, and business owners were left to ponder, “Now what?” Unlike large corporations where edicts come from on high, small business owners work side-by-side with their staff. Their boots are on the ground, in the mud and caked with the day’s effort. Laying off one worker, let alone an entire team, brings with it an added level of ache. It’s as if they are furloughing their own family members, which many of them have become. Some owners will even “fire” themselves in order to save as many of their workforce as possible, continuing to come to work every day but without pay, doing what it takes to make sure all survive.
As for the “Now what?” small businesses have adapted and adjusted and used social media more than ever to keep customers informed. Can’t open their doors to dine-in customers? Curbside pick-up of to-go orders becomes the standard at full-service restaurants and smaller eateries. Liquor stores like Cape Cod Package Store in Centerville and wholesalers with retail markets such as Guaranteed Fresh Produce in Hyannis and Ring Brothers in South Dennis began to offer residential delivery service to those sheltering in place, as did Osterville Fish on Thursdays during Lent. Chef/owner Jason Montigel turned the menu of his Clean Slate Eatery in West Dennis from a multi-course tasting menu dining experience to La Tacodellia, serving Southern California/Tijuana style tacos where nothing on the menu was more than $5.50 (excluding the bottle of ‘96 Jordan Cabernet for something exceedingly far north of $5.50). These pivots are essential not only to continue serving their customers, but to endure through this time of economic uncertainty while keeping as much staff employed as possible, paying the bills and just getting through to next week.
It helps to remember what Mr. Rogers’ mom would tell him as a boy when he saw scary things in the news, “Look to the helpers.” Thankfully for those of us on Cape Cod, we don’t have to look very far. They are all around us. They are Truro Vineyards + South Hollow Spirits. The Roberts family switched South Hollow Spirits from distilling their high-quality Twenty Boat Rum and Dry Line Gin to producing hand sanitizer for local customers and the first responders and health care workers on the front lines. “The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau really made it easy for us to make the transition,” Kristen Roberts said. “They contacted every distiller and said, ‘Here’s the recipe’.” Kristen’s brother, Dave, and the staff at South Hollow Spirits began producing two-and-a-half- gallon batches of hand sanitizer at a time.
Head distiller Dave Roberts started with the 35 gallons of uncut (high-proof) gin he had on hand to make the first 40 gallons of sanitizer. After that, he fired up the still again. “The two-day distillation produced 82 gallons of 180 proof spirit,” Roberts describes. All the ingredients are blended and need to sit for 48 to 72 hours, then it’s ready to be bottled. In addition to the free refills they supplied to local people who came to the vineyard, they also provided sanitizer in bulk quantities to the area police and fire departments, nursing home and health care workers.
Kristen remembers when the world began its slide into the surreal. Social distancing had begun to take shape, and crowd sizes were being curtailed around the country. “It was the second week in March,” she recalls. “We were hosting a spring cocktail contest and we had a large crowd which would normally be a great thing.” She goes on to add, “I remember feeling just the opposite and that this didn’t feel good.”
With all that demand, supply concerns become an issue. One aspect that Truro Vineyards faced was a developing shortage of bottles to be filled with the sanitizer. Bridget Lucy of Beachy Moms Natural Products donated glycerin and bottles so Dave could get up and running while waiting on an order of supplies. “The support from local businesses has been great,” Roberts says. “People just want to help out any way they can.”
Just down the road on Route 6 in North Truro, Atlantic Spice Company stepped up and supplied Truro Vineyards + South Hollow Spirits with much-needed containers. Atlantic Spice provided hundreds of flasks and sprayer bottles along with bottles of peppermint oil. “We just made a small donation. They did all the hard work,” manager Alex Peterson said. It wasn’t the only donation made by the company. Atlantic Spice also contributed spices and jars to the newly-formed Truro Community Kitchen that popped up at the Truro location of The Box Lunch on Route 6A with a mission to help anyone in the area who may have food insecurity during the viral outbreak.
Truro is not the only community banding together to help out fellow townspeople. Hyannis-based attorney Bruce Bierhans remembers how Common Table began. “It was that Saturday night (March 14) just before the state shut everything down,” the Wellfleet resident recalls. “I texted Trudy at The Fox and Crow Café about providing free grab and go meals for students.” Trudy Vermehren, owner of The Fox and Crow Cafe, and Bierhans came up with a plan to help the kids who’d otherwise be missing out on school-supplied lunches. “We had it all planned out that Sunday morning,” Bruce said. “We were handing out meals the following Tuesday.” Located on Commercial Street in Wellfleet, The Fox and Crow became the site of the newly-formed 501c(3) organization, Common Table. Donations of food and money started to flow. “We had raised over $20,000 in the first 48 hours,” exclaims Bierhans. “One guy who would stop in for coffee at The Fox and Crow made a $2000 donation through PayPal!” So much food was donated that the group was able to offer both breakfast and lunch options for anyone who needed them, free of charge, no questions asked. The staff of Common Table numbers around a dozen between the cooks, front of the house staff and delivery drivers. After a few short weeks, Common Table had already served over 1000 meals! “We’re so well organized, I’m as useful as a bump on a log,” laughs Bierhans.
It’s a family affair at Spoon and Seed in Hyannis, as Matt Tropeano and his parents Alfonso and Tina work tirelessly to feed those most in need in the mid-Cape area with “Mamma Maria’s Care Packages” in addition to offering an abbreviated menu for regular to-go breakfast and lunch orders. It all started with Matt’s cousin Jerry Gaita, who owns the restaurant and event facility Primavera in Millis. With the banning of large group events, Primavera was left with a tremendous amount of unused food already on hand for cancelled functions. Jerry’s mother Maria would cook in times of emergency. Feeding people was (and remains) in the family’s blood, so Jerry turned to preparing meals for those in need from the food Primavera had at the ready. It has turned into a pay-it-forward program of donations to help fund their continued efforts.
Chef Matt at Spoon and Seed took up the cause and, with a small band of volunteer “Angel Couriers,” provided meals to those in need. Cape Codders who are sheltering in place and are at risk or essential workers all need sustenance, and Mamma Maria’s Care Packages are there to fill their bellies. Tropeano and his parents assemble meals that can feed four to six people in take-and-bake containers, and leave them on the table just inside the front door of Spoon and Seed. The same care and creativity Tropeano puts into crafting Spoon and Seed’s menu can be found in the care packages: interesting flavors, fresh preparation, and even some in-house smoked meats. Matt’s Angel Couriers or anyone who either needs the meals or knows of a friend or neighbor in need can help themselves, and again, there are no questions asked.
“There’s a lot of people you wouldn’t expect to need these,” Tropeano explains. “Doctors and nurses come home after an incredibly long day. They may or may not have kids, but they now have to figure out what to make for dinner. This is one less thing they have to worry about.” Deliveries were made to Cape Cod Hospital as well as local police and fire departments. Also on the list was the Cape Conservatory (who opened their doors for emergency childcare services for all the health care workers), rescue personnel, grocery store employees and others deemed essential by Governor Charlie Baker.
All of this, of course, wouldn’t be possible without the donors who help to pay it forward. “It’s really a three-level system,” Matt points out. “Those of us doing the cooking, the drivers and the donors.” Donations through over-the-phone credit card payments, PayPal, Venmo, Spoon and Seed’s website (www.spoonandseed.com) and cash drop-offs at the restaurant on Kidd’s Hill Road in Hyannis were all welcome. “It’s just a very strange time,” Matt said when reached by phone during the height of the pandemic. “I told myself ‘just keep cooking’.” Cook he did, and hundreds of people have been the better for it.
These are only a few examples of the scores of heart-warming stories to come out of one of the worst situations imaginable. There were far too many of the other types of stories across Cape Cod as well. Those of pain and anguish as businesses were forced to make the gut-wrenching decision to lock their doors, wait out the viral storm and hope that there was a business to re-open when it cleared. It will be a long time before things are truly “back to normal,” but the more we support one another, the faster that return will be. Whether it’s dining out, shopping at one (or more) of the many local food and farmers’ markets across Cape Cod, or picking up a few essentials from a local merchant, we have just as much power to help others as the businesses described here. If we all do just one thing every couple of days to help a neighbor’s business, we can lift not only our neighbors but ourselves. Dave Roberts said it best during the state-wide shutdown, “When this is all a little closer to back to normal, you will have helped these small businesses stay alive. That is a good feeling.” Yes sir, as good a feeling as a nice warm hug…something we so desperately could use right about now.
