A Fort Collins bar and restaurant owner discusses how COVID has affected his business

The following is a transcript of an interview with Gerard Boyle, a partner at Fort Collins’ very own DC Oakes Brewhouse and Eatery, Penrose Taphouse and Eatery, and Sonny Lubick Steakhouse. The interview has been restructured for ease of reading and some of the questions have been edited for brevity. Parts of Boyle’s answers were emended for the sake of legibility, but efforts were made to preserve the essence of his answers.

Q. How has COVID-19 impacted your businesses?

A. It just totally changes your business plan and how you operate, because it was very unexpected.

So we’ve been here for four and a half years, and this is an entity that we’ve borrowed a lot of money to get started with a sound business plan — and we’re on track to eliminate our business debt. When COVID started, that really was a gut check. There were definitely changes to the business — how we had to operate — that were mandated, and also the responsible thing to do. There were also changes to just how you were thinking about everything and how it affected you.

Like every restaurant, there was no in-house dining for ten weeks. From basically St. Patrick’s Day 2020 onward. There were opportunities for takeout and delivery food. We never engaged a third-party delivery group prior to COVID. We were never about to-go food, either. There’s an added expense with all the packaging and the quality stinks. Our menu is not great to take home because you’ve got products that are still hot and that have a lot of water content to them. That totally changed with COVID. We were like, “alright, we need to have our packaging dialed in,” because that was the only source of revenue we had. That was it. We do not do any off-premises sales for liquor stores or supermarkets for our beer, so it really came down to how much can we do out the door. And our community here was a huge supporter of ours.

I think nationally, people that weren’t necessarily take-out diners pivoted to embracing it and figuring it out. We did figure that out. To this day, we have not engaged a third-party delivery company, and that also goes towards the quality of the product getting to somebody’s home. You’re handing something to people we don’t know. If they’re smoking in their car, that taints it. Are they helping themselves to some fries? Things like that.

During the ten-week shutdown, we were about to begin opening our restaurant downtown — Penrose Taphouse and Eatery. We had just hired two new managers and another chef, so that was difficult because I really felt committed to making sure that we could take care of them. We kept everyone on salary engaged, but we were all taking orders and cooking. We were able to keep a few of our line cooks working, and then as we figured out how much our sales were, we were able to bring in some of our fronthouse folks during the few hours we were open. It was weird, man.

We did get some big maintenance items done that we wouldn’t normally have been able to do. The sales just weren’t enough for us. The PPP Loan program came out in [April]. We applied for that and received a PPP Loan, and that was a lifeline for us. I think without that, we would have taken on more debt, and that could have been damaging for us in the long term.

We wanted to do the right thing, and there just was not a lot of information about COVID and it's transmission. Even the chemicals we used to sanitize were ‘quat’ (quaternary ammonium compounds) sanitizers, and they initially said ‘quat’ sanitizers weren’t gonna kill COVID. So we switched to using bleach on everything. Everyday we would bleach almost every surface in this place. It was to the point that we had used pens, sanitized pens. Everyone that came in was standing six feet apart. It was all of that stuff. We wanted to not only be responsible by doing the right thing — as it pertained to being a safe place and so forth — but also take care of our staff too.

Basically I said, “you need to file for unemployment benefits.” There was just no way around it. We just didn’t have the funds. What we did do was we told them, “you can come in every day and have a free meal.” We had 90 people, and we just said you can come in and get a free meal and a beer every day. And that was their meal everyday. We probably saw some folks four to seven times a week, and we were happy to do that. And it was something we could afford to do.

I think the next phase that summer was a lot of outdoor dining, and the licensing authorities for liquor and health department were very easy to work with. It was the easiest experience I’ve ever had with the liquor authority for the state of Colorado. We sent in a plan to expand our patio and that was approved within days. Our whole front patio went from five tables to 18, and that was good. People really wanted to feel safe. We bought heaters and went through an insane amount of propane during the wintef of 2020, and we’re gearing up to do it again this year. It’s changed people’s habits. There are different dining habits that you never thought you would see. Even lately, I’ve noticed a lot more people still wearing masks.

The biggest changes were — how can we continue to be a good employer, a responsible business, and a profitable business? And for a long time, it was more about staying afloat.

Q. Were you doing alcohol orders to-go, as well?

A. That was another change that was made very quickly, and the Colorado Restaurant Association was a huge ally for all restaurants. They really were a great mouthpiece to talk to legislature.

The to-go alcohol policy was just extended for another [four] years until 2025.

We could always do our beer to go, because we have a brew pub license, so if its produced here, we can do it. But then they added in wine and liquor, and that was cool. We’re responsible. We understand the responsibility that goes along with being a liquor license holder. It was a great added amenity and a little added revenue.

Q. Have you noticed any demographical changes amongst customers following the pandemic?

A. Yes. So I think we’re back to normal, but we didn’t really see any retired folks for about a year. You’re talking about going through all kinds of holidays: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, all these different things. It was really bizarre.

Then we got the vaccines coming in January or February. There was a Friday, and you could mark it on your calendar. It was like a bus from the senior center rolled up out here. It was a party. I hadn’t seen anyone with white hair in here in over a year. I don’t know if it was coincidental, but it was noticeable that that had changed.

But they’re back, and then aside from that, some people are gonna continue to wear masks.

Q. Were you affected by the labor shortage linked to the COVID-19 pandemic?

A. Yeah. I think we’re finally fully staffed. In fact, the payroll we just submitted for the end of September, we had the highest number of employees we’ve ever had on payroll.

However, not that simple. Three months ago, it was a scramble. This summer was difficult. If you were a salaried employee or an owner, there were some long weeks. We put in 28 tables outside, so we’re able to seat the whole restaurant and outside. This summer, it was a very busy summer — and again I feel so fortunate about that — but that required more people, and it was just impossible to get applications. It was up to us to really train, teach, continue development of training for applicants. It was a challenge because we’re all doing production stuff, whether its bartending, expoing (organizing the food tickets and sending the food out), bussing, hosting — and continuing to operate the business side of things. And when someone pops hot for COVID, then you have to make up 40 or 50 hours for that person.

I thought when enhanced unemployment benefits ended in September, we would get a big rush of applicants. It wasn’t the case. I think there’s 240,000 unfilled restaurant jobs in the state. I think the treatment from customers may have driven some people out of the business or looking for something else. There’s probably several reasons why there’s so many unfilled jobs, but right now, we have high-volume sales, so all our front house positions are filled.

The one thing I guess we did change was we always wanted to have smaller sections for our servers so we could keep it going. Not be an order taker, but have more of a relational engagement with our guests. When I look at it now, I think these sections are too big. Going into next year’s patio season, we’ll draw it up differently and hopefully have some folks to add to the business.

But right now, we’re kind of back to normal. And part of it in Fort Collins is school’s back in session, so there’s folks that are wanting to work and are looking for jobs again.

Q. Regarding policy makers and government officials, were you happy with the help you received? Do you think they could have done more to help you?

A. I can only speak for us, because I only know our financial structure. It saved us. Penrose was not eligible, so that was very stressful. You had to have been open and operating by February of 2020, and we didn’t open until June. We had that in the works for many months prior to COVID, and we pulled the trigger on doing our buildout and all our tenant finishes in October of 2019.

At that point, once we began that it triggers part of our lease that we have a certain amount of time to start paying rent. We couldn’t tell the general contractor to stop. We also had to raise money to build that place, so that was very stressful because it was hanging on by a hair. We were able to do it, but when we opened on June 20th, 2020, it was six-foot distancing. It was half-capacity. You couldn’t have anybody sitting at the bar. At certain times, you had the concerned citizen who takes it upon themselves to report something. It ranged from that person to the type that wouldn’t wear a mask.

Q. Did you run into a lot of people that refused to wear a mask or comply with COVID-19 policies?

A. Too much of it. It was just so odd. A mask from the front door to this table was a 15 or 20-second walk, and then you can take it off. It was just a strange time. The thing that really bothered me is the people that work here are young people. Our hosts are 17, 18 years old. Our servers are young. They’re taking the brunt of it. There are a few people that stick out in my mind in particular that were very unpleasant, and if we go back to a mask policy, we’ll operate a little differently next time.

Q. What exactly would you do differently?

A. We’re not dealing with those people. We’re not here to hear about your political views, about the efficacy of a mask or any of that stuff. If you want to come in here and eat and drink and have a great experience, the mask will be on from the front door, and I don’t want to hear about it. It’s just tiresome. We’re very fortunate — every day there’s hundreds of people that come through our front door. It’s not our policy.

Q. Would you do anything else differently if we were to enter another lockdown?

A. We’ve talked about it a little bit. Right now, we basically have a roadmap of what worked well and what didn’t work well. I can’t see anything we could do that would benefit the business more, and we try to check three boxes when we’re doing something. We say, “is it good for the business?” Because if it is, then we know that it comes through to our staff and guests positively, and we can meet our financial obligations. However we’re gonna operate and whatever the parameters are for any of the future mandates, we would use that as a future touchpoint for good, sound decisions — but I don’t even like thinking about another lockdown.

Q. You mentioned receiving a lot of support from your community during lockdown. Would you say that overall, your experience with your customers during the pandemic was good?

A. Oh yeah. People were genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of our business. We’re really right in the middle of all these neighborhoods: Timnath, Fort Collins, Loveland, Windsor. We do engage with different groups of the community. On Mondays, for example, we donate 10% of our sales from five to eight p.m. to whatever group is looking to raise money. That’s how we direct people into a fundraising opportunity. For years we’ve made those connections with people. They knew that we — hopefully — operate our business in the right way or a good manner. There was a genuine concern, and at the time, you didn’t know when the other side was.

Q. What advice do you have for other business owners on adjusting to life in the industry after COVID-19?

A. You have to operate your business however you’re comfortable.

Last summer, there were groups of restaurant owners that were getting together and saying (regarding COVID restrictions), “we’re not going to do it.” That’s fine. They reached out to me and I just didn’t feel like that was what we wanted to do. I have an obligation to my staff to keep them employed, and I didn’t want to risk getting shut down. We also had a PPP Loan, and you have to be in good standing with local licensing authorities and government authorities. If we had our liquor license pulled, the risk of not being able to have that forgiven would be too great.

My advice is: do what you need to do to continue to be a good employer, operate your business, and meet your obligations. I can’t tell you what that is for other businesses, and I absolutely 100% understand what everybody else chose to do. You just have to make the decisions that fit your business the best.