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SALT LAKE CITY — Megan Faulkner Brown was in denial. It was hard not to be. The world was changing by the minute — and all of it was bad for her business.
Brown’s gourmet bakery, The Sweet Tooth Fairy, thrives on events — birthdays, company gatherings, weddings, graduations, etc. Practically overnight, the coronavirus pandemic put an end to all those celebrations. That left Brown and her business in a tough spot.
The last three months have been a hectic time for business owners across Utah. Some have had to lay off employees or close shop entirely, while others have even seen their businesses thrive.
Here’s a look at how some of the businesses have been affected by the pandemic.
The Sweet Tooth Fairy
Once the denial wore off, Brown started thinking of all the other challenges she’s overcome as she's built up a company that now has five locations throughout the state. To her, the pandemic was just another roadblock.
She and her team then thought of ways to stay afloat without in-store traffic and without normal events. They began a fundraising promotion called “Social Sweetening” allowing customers to purchase cookies for the workers on the front lines of the pandemic. They started offering at-home cookie dough, decorating kits and cake kits, branching their business out a bit. And they ramped up their online ordering to make it easier for customers.
“Things that we've been talking about for a long time wanting to do someday down the road, we really had to put those into hyperdrive and figure them out,” Brown said.
The new ideas haven’t made up for the lost revenue, not by a long shot — and Brown even admits that she probably should be freaking out a bit more when she looks at the numbers. Money from the Paycheck Protection Program and understanding landlords have helped, as has her loyal customer base.
“We have a lot of amazing customers,” Brown said. “We've had just such incredible support from so many awesome people. I'm just super grateful.”
Yummy’s Korean BBQ
In early March, Sun Choi, owner of Yummy’s Korean BBQ in Orem, could get brisket for $2.99 per pound. In late May, the price had more than doubled. So on top of dealing with less in-house customers and fewer orders as he attempts to navigate through the pandemic, he now has to pay a lot more for meat. And for an all-you-can-eat model, that's not the easiest thing.
“Margins are really tough,” Choi said. “It's super tough for sure. You just gotta, you just gotta grind. You got to live day by day.”
It’s been a rollercoaster few months for Choi. He laid off much of his staff when he had to close his doors as the pandemic first hit but was able to rehire most of them when local tech company Podium offered a lifeline by offering a platform, free of charge, that helped Yummy take more orders. Now, the restaurant is figuring out how to make it in a world where tables have been limited and people are apprehensive about dining in.
“Now that we're back open, I think there's still a lot of people that are hesitant to come out,” Choi said. “Obviously, takeout has gone down quite a bit, just with all the restaurants opening up so, but that was expected. ... I think it's still going to take a couple more months until things kind of level off, and maybe even up to a year or so. I'm not sure, but I'm preparing for the worst.”
He's focused on promotions, and he had to raise some prices to try and keep up the rising costs of beef. Choi said his goal for the foreseeable future is to just break even.
Cascade Collision Repair
The pandemic didn’t hit Cascade Collision Repair right away. In March, the shop closed out the month having done around $500,000 of work. Then April came and the company saw business go down 33%. It dropped even more in May.
That led to budgets getting slashed and employees being furloughed.
“Our main goal is just to get into a place where we're comfortable bringing everyone back; we definitely don't want to lose any of our techs,” Cascade Collision business development director Haley Sanderson said.
To try to keep business going, Cascade has been picking up and dropping off cars for high-risk individuals and those who don’t feel comfortable coming into the shop. They’ve also had to adjust how they do things, including deep cleaning cars before they begin work.
While spring is usually a slower time for the company in normal years — due to less snow and weather tends to lead to fewer crashes — cosmetic work has kept the workload up. Sanderson said that type of work has been nearly non-existent since the pandemic.
The hope is that by fall things will have returned to normal.
“We're hoping by September that we're fully 100%, the way we were back in March before all this happened,” Sanderson said.
Keystone Insurance
Brent Thurman, president of Keystone Insurance in Orem, has felt a little guilty over the last few months. He’s heard from neighbors and friends about their struggles during the COVID-19 crisis, but the same isn’t true for his business.
“April was one of our biggest months that we've had in a long time for quotes,” Thurman said.
He credits that to people being at home more and having a bit more time to shop around and research. But that doesn’t mean it’s all been good. They have seen a “dramatic decrease” of non-standard policies (policies for those with poor driving records), but he said those should start to go back up as more people return to work.
Thurman has had a change of mindset for how the company could do business during this time. He said he has always maintained a prominent retail location, but after seeing the success of working from home and how everyone has used online communication to support clients, he’s not so sure that’s a necessity anymore.
“If we're looking for a positive of what it's actually affected, it's been a positive for us in that way, where customers have been a lot more willing to take advantage of the timesaving pieces,” Thurman said.
Creekside Mortgage
Mark Welch, the owner of Creekside Mortgage in Pleasant Grove, hasn’t met face-to-face with a client since March 1, but that doesn't mean work has been in short supply. During the pandemic, mortgage rates hit historic lows, which means a rush of people refinancing and even some still buying.
Even during a pandemic, Utah homes are hard to get into.
“Offers that are being made are still encountering multiple offer situations, where they're the third or fourth offer; and the homes that they're looking at that are priced well are usually under contract within, you know, like 48 hours,” Welch said.
Welch calls home purchasing the “bread and butter” of the business, but during the pandemic, that has taken a backseat to refinancing. With rates dropping below 3%, many have refinanced loans to save themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars. Welch said 90% of his work has been working on refinancing loans.
And the fact that homes are still being bought during an economic downturn is a sign to Welch of how far Utah has to go to meet the demand for housing.
“Even now, we're in this huge pandemic,” Welch said, “there should be a lot of caution. There shouldn't be a lot of people buying these — at least that's what your logical mind will tell you.”
He also issued a warning for those hoping for housing prices to drop due to the pandemic.
“I don't see it when I hear that every one of my buyers is the fourth offer on the house they're trying to buy it. It can't happen,” Welch said.
