COVID-19 causes changes to Oxford bar scene
By Nick Wiehe
Miami University journalism student
The uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has created unique challenges for many people. In small-town Oxford, it’s more of the same as the town’s small businesses have been forced to adapt how they conduct their craft on a daily basis.
Only about 5% of small businesses, including bars, around the world have not been affected by the pandemic. Bars in Oxford are among those businesses who have struggled to make payroll and not dive too deep into the red during COVID.
Skippers Top Deck on High Street has been one of the most popular bars in uptown Oxford since opening its doors back in 1984, but not even that popularity keep it from feeling the repercussions of the pandemic.
Skippers owner Andy Amarantos says they shut down operations for an extended period of time until it became clear how the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is spread.
Once mask mandates were in place and rules about social distancing were established, bar owners began considering how to safely open. And while owners and employees alike began considering how to welcome back patrons, one concern remained: “Capacity,” Amarantos said.
Capacity rules at Skippers have caused a number of different issues for the business. The number one issue being less revenue.
“Say you can have anywhere from 80 to 100 people inside and outside the bar on a given night. Now you are dealing with about half of that, which means half the normal revenue,” Amarantos said.
The issue of capacity is one many bar owners have pointed to as a major struggle during COVID. When you lose half of your business on a daily basis you have to adjust or you start to fizzle out.
“We changed everything to follow the guidelines. However, we didn’t do anything differently to bring in more people. There is only so much you can do during a time like this. Quarantine and capacity rules play a huge role in that,” Amarantos said.
Curfew was another big issue that Amarantos faced during this time the COVID lockdown. Skippers typically stays open until about 2 am. When the statewide curfew was still in place, it was forced to close its doors at 11 pm. Alcohol sales had to stop at 10 pm.
Curfew also had an effect on the staffing and hiring of employees.
“Curfew has affected how I set up Skippers schedule in a lot of ways. Whether that be poor excuses for missing work, people switching shifts, employees making way less money, as well as getting people to stay on even when they aren’t in school anymore,” Amarantos said.
Employees who work at Skippers were forced to adjust. Curfew caused shift hours to be completely different. Working earlier hours in the day meant that employees miss out on the prime money making hours later in the day. This affects not only the worker, but the establishment as well.
While Skippers has faced a number of different changes and problems, it has adjusted. According to Amarantos it’s how you deal with the “little problems” that make you a successful business. For Skippers, dealing meant adjusting the bar’s business plan to survive during a global pandemic.
Most bars in Oxford have had to deal with similar issues. Some handled COVID-19 better than others.
Ian Crapsey and Fode Bah both work in management roles for Corner Bar and Drinkery in Oxford. As they struggled to craft schedules for their workers, they also had to contend with how the COVID pandemic affected their own work hours.
“COVID-19 affected my work schedule by limiting me to 4 to 5 hours a week, usually only working one day during that week,” Fode Bah said.
Curfew shaved off about 4 to 5 hours from the normal work week. That might not seem like much, however it is still a substantial amount of work missed for someone relying on that paycheck to make ends meet, including the college students employed by many of these places.
“Now that the curfew is lifted I’m able to work 7 to 8 hours sometimes, maybe more with multiple shifts throughout the week,” Bah said.
Capacity also plays a role in this. The more people you are allowed to have in your establishment, the more workers you can have on staff.
Ian Crapsey was hired after the pandemic was already taking the world by storm, which made the various lockdowns, curfews and missed out paychecks particularly difficult to deal with.
“I personally did not have a job before COVID-19, but I can say that it is very difficult to work dealing with masks and not as much income,” Crapsey said.
As with Skippers, Corner Bar made adjustments to its business plan in an attempt to make up for significant revenue loss.
“The menu has not changed but there is more advertising in order to attract the most business possible,” Crapsey said.
Bars like Corner are starting to use social media more than ever before to bring in more customers. Corner’s Instagram page allows it to let its customers know what specials the bar’s running or what events it may be hosting.
“For example, along with the normal Thursday night deals, Corner Bar now offers tacos for a very low price. Customers can now enjoy tacos along with a margarita” Bah said.
This deal has been advertised all over Corner’s social media pages and as well as the more old fashioned posters hanging in the bar’s windows.
All of this, the social media, the posters and the specials are an attempt to tap into the widest customer demographics possible.
Given that almost 100,000 small businesses that temporarily shutdown during COVID never opened their doors back up, it’s likely more bars will begin looking for ways to bring in a diverse array of customers.
Amarantos, Bah and Crapsey all acknowledged that to survive bars need to be able to roll with the punches of whatever is thrown at them. Although they all think there are ways city officials might be able to soften those blows.
For its part, the City of Oxford did look for ways to help small businesses during the shut downs.
Assistant City Manager Jessica Greene says all of the small businesses in Oxford, especially the bars, needed help from the city. They were reporting substantial revenue loss when the pandemic first happened and this has continued into 2021.
The city’s attention quickly turned to how it could help these businesses stay afloat.
“We immediately started the gift card program where we took 200,000 from our general fund and bought gift cards from our local business to try and hold them over and keep them upright,” Greene said.
The city later decided it didn’t want to make the businesses in Oxford honor those gift cards because honoring them could still pose a financial risk to bars and restaurants at a difficult time. So, the city decided to create a grant program to help out.
“All of our attention immediately turned back to how do we help our businesses, and we decided to start numerous different grant programs,” Greene said.
“We even created emergency small business loans that are 0 interest and easy to obtain to kind of help our businesses recover,” Greene said.
The businesses’ recovery was important to the city for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the lost of revenue the city experienced during lockdowns and bar closures.
According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), COVID-19 spreads from person to person via respiratory droplets from close contact. Mingling in crowded indoor spaces, such as bars, facilitates the spread of the disease. Gathering outside while maintaining social distancing lowers an individual’s chances of catching or spreading the virus.
Though it had been in the works prior to COVID, Oxford launched a DORA last summer in an attempt to get people uptown and into bars in a safe, socially distanced way.
A DORA is a designated outdoor refreshment area — basically, it’s a part of a city or town where people can legally drink outside.
In Oxford, that meant people could walk into Skippers or Corner Bar or any number of establishments, order an alcoholic drink to go and hang out with friends in one of the uptown parks.
Greene says she began working on creating a DORA prior to becoming the assistant city manager, which made it easier to get it up and running during COVID.
The struggles in Oxford are mirrored in other parts of the area as well.
Kevin Malone, General Manager of Bishops Quarter in Loveland, Ohio, says COVID changes have been most visible when it comes to safety and ordering at the bar.
“Additional safety protocols such as masks, additional cleaning, more space between tables. Also, a significant increase in carryout business were the main differences for our business,” Malone said.
Like the bars in Oxford, Bishop’s Quarter had its own struggles during the COVID curfew.
“It was devastating to our business as we do a lot of our high margin business (drinks) between 10 pm and 12 am,” Malone said. “Losing these two hours on Friday and Saturday hurt our sales numbers and our margin numbers. We did create a number of drink specials to push after 9:30 that would give our customers an incentive to purchase multiple drinks prior to 10 and stay around until 11 to finish the drinks.”
While Gov. Mike DeWine has begun slowly easing up on some of the more strict COVID restrictions, mask mandates and social distancing requirements remain in place for the state’s bars and restaurants. Customers may be able to stay past 11 to finish their drinks, but it may be some time before the concern with capacity is about not having enough space to fit everyone inside who wants to get in rather than enough space so that everyone can spread out.
Recently Oxford decided to lift the ban on big outdoor gatherings and parties. The State of Ohio followed by announcing that stadiums in the state will now be able to hold fans. It may all be a matter of time before capacity restrictions are lifted for indoor gatherings and bars are able to pack patrons in once again.
