I am the owner of a bakery café in Seattle. Since I bought Piroshki on 3rd in 2016, the business has been growing steadily in both popularity and revenue. We even just finished renovating last November 2019.

That growth abruptly stopped when news hit that we had our first COVID-19 case in Washington. Our sales dipped about 10%, not that bad but still noticeable.

Then Amazon, the biggest tech company in Seattle, found that one of their employees tested positive for the virus. They immediately told their workers to work from home. Other companies followed suit. Since our store is in a business district, that 10% dip in sales became a 60% decline almost overnight. Businesses cancelled all catering orders as well. What was once a bustling street full of people going to and from work, became a ghost town.

With that, we decided to have a meeting with our team. I didn’t even have to say anything before our amazing employees started volunteering to cut their hours. No one has ever seen the streets, let alone the store, look so empty before. Everyone wanted to do what they can to help the bakery get through this.

With everyone cutting a little bit of their hours, the 60% decline didn’t seem as bad anymore. We thought we might just have a fighting chance. We signed up for Shared work to supplement some of the employees’ lost hours, we were polishing up our online delivery apps to find more avenues to bring our product to people, we still had some of our supportive customers coming in for lunch….we were hopeful and things didn’t look too bleak.

Until the Governor announced that the virus situation isn’t improving and that bars, restaurants, and any other recreational facilities must shut down. Restaurants are still allowed to provide take-out and delivery services, but in-dining isn’t allowed. Our delivery apps were already running at this point, so we decided to test it out for the next couple of days and have a talk with our staff to see where we’re at.

After 2 days, it was clear that take-out only wasn’t going to be sustainable. This sanction has even caused the hotel that we’re leasing our space from to close. We had a long and earnest discussion with the team. It was evident that temporarily closing was the only way we can effectively plan for the business’s future rather than reacting to the daily changes this pandemic has brought on.

While everyone understood, it was hard to let go of our 15 wonderful employees. To help them, we have shared unemployment resources and possible relief funds. Everyone’s keeping in contact and we will stay vigilant in researching any possibilities for support. We have allowed them access to the bakery so they can take ingredients home as they need them. They are also encouraged to find other job opportunities outside of the bakery. They know that once we are finally allowed to reopen again that our doors are always open to them.