Small businesses are at the heart of our communities. The Open for Business series is our effort to document the struggles of our local merchants in these unprecedented times, and to highlight their resourcefulness, resilience and creativity.

Healthway Natural Foods in Tenafly has been meeting the healthy-eating needs of the community since 1983.

The store on Riveredge Road was founded by Mansoor Arain and operated by him until his death in 2002. After a period under different ownership, it's now run by Khalid Mansoor and his wife, Nida, the daughter of Mansoor Arain. They also run an adjoining café and juice bar.

Now in their 11th year of ownership, they and 12 employees are facing their biggest challenge in keeping the store running as their doors are closed and their hours are scaled back due to the coronavirus.

Business now means taking more orders by email primarily or over the phone and having them ready to be picked up curbside by customers. The store sells a variety of products, from organic eggs to paleo bread.

Mansoor said he has tried to keep a pragmatic outlook in these times.

"Most of us have not dealt with something like this in our lifetime, but we just stay calm and help people around us," Mansoor said. "We need to be there for each other."

How has this experience been for you?

It's a mixed bag. Physically and mentally it's very exhausting, because you want to make sure you are not missing anything, get everyone's order correct. There's a whole lot of stuff added to the process, which before was a very simple process. The process has been more exhausting, but it's been very rewarding also that I, as an owner, and my wife have done our best to protect our employees, and we do our best to try to serve our community.

What has the community been like?

I have to say we are very grateful to the customers, where they know that it will take some time to fulfill the order, a couple of hours, and they're like, "It's OK." It's good in a way how people are stepping back and saying, "You know what, it's OK we don't get everything we need, and if it takes you guys a little bit of time, it's OK. Just call us whenever you're ready, we'll come and pick up."

How are you coping? What changes have you made?

Of course, the biggest change is we closed our doors and are only doing business curbside. Also, we reduced our hours a little bit, not a lot, by an hour. And we are closed earlier, which allows us to clean the store again more thoroughly and to just give everyone a little bit of a break in the day. One part is the physical part and the other is the mental. With everything going on and the stress, it allows our employees to decompress.

What’s your biggest concern for your business?

My biggest concern is getting the products that we need. The biggest concern moving forward is: Do we have enough access to product to keep our shelves stocked? I feel like we will figure how to serve our community better, how to make the process more efficient, how to make it so they know what we carry and what we don't have. I think that's the part that we can fix, that we can control. The part that we cannot control is what do we get.

What can the public do to help?

It's not just us; I think whatever small businesses are open, which is the main engine of America's economy, I think whatever the public can do in terms of patronizing them is doing us all a favor. The more these small businesses that can still be open right now, the more the public supports them, it allows them to keep their employees. It allows those employees to have the paychecks, allows them to get the money they need to pay their bills.

Ricardo Kaulessar is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com Twitter: @ricardokaul