“One advantage a small-business owner has is the total freedom to change, adapt, pivot and completely rethink their businesses in order to suit them for now and the future,” said David Sax, author of “The Soul of an Entrepreneur: Work and Life Beyond The Startup Myth.”

The initial step for Ms. Owens and her team was to dust off the Iwi Fresh virtual storefront. “We had a website and an online presence, but there was a lesson learned in gearing things up,” she said. “We took the e-commerce site for granted and had put more energy into our in-house spa services, so while we didn’t have to start from scratch, there were glitches — technical issues that we hadn’t expected.” Now rebooted, online sales have been steadily climbing.

Next, she rebranded. “How do we re-create as a no-touch service?” she said. “I had to think about what we really do — we provide self-care and wellness. We now have to give our customers what they were always getting hands on from a digital perspective.”

To do so, Ms. Owens started the Zero Waste Save Face campaign via the Instagram account. “I host online self-care spa parties and tell people, for instance, how to save fruits or vegetables that may be too ripe to eat and make them into masks for their skin,” she said. “It makes our people feel that we’re still there for them, and these are techniques they can do at home on their own.”

And she and her team created pandemic-related promotions, including quarantine self-care home kits for curbside pickup and delivery. Finally, Ms. Owens offers virtual consultations with clients for $35 for a half-hour session, and is starting fee-based online courses on the elements of skin care.

Although Georgia has permitted the opening of salons and spas, Ms. Owens is holding off until at least mid-June. “I care too much about my staff, clients and their families,” she said. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

When Iwi Fresh does open its doors, Ms. Owens will be following state safety guidelines, including no walk-in appointments, an approved sanitation process on tools and equipment, temperature checks, gloves, face masks, and a customer medical questionnaire.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/business/small-business-covid-pandemic-iwi-fresh-atlanta.html

On Tuesday mornings, when their online store starts taking new orders, they sometimes sit and watch as items sell out within minutes. “For a small specialty market in our part of the country, we don’t usually have the problem of not being able to meet the demand,” Ms. Bjerke-Harvey said.

Restaurants have often had access to ingredients that their customers didn’t know about or couldn’t get their hands on. Getting a farmer or cheesemaker or winery to grant an exclusive on some obscure, delicious item used to be a considered a victory for chefs.

The pandemic has put those relationships in a different perspective.

“There is this group of farms that relied on us, some of them 100 percent,” Dan Barber, the chef of Blue Hill, in Manhattan, and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., said. “It feels like the ultimate expression of support. Then in a moment like this you realize you’ve created the weakest food chain imaginable.”

To keep cash circulating to the farmers, foragers and fishing crews that depend on Blue Hill, Mr. Barber began selling boxes of fish, meat or seasonal vegetables for curbside pickup. Customers get a grab bag of ingredients both well-known (greenhouse cucumbers) and less familiar (Purple Sword celtuce stalks). Tucked into the boxes are recipes and background on the crops, including the information that the telltale holes in “beetle-bitten brassicas” were left by flea beetles, who have a knack for finding the sweetest plants in the field.

As supply-chain disruptions have caused shortages in commodity beef and pork, meat from old livestock breeds raised on pastures has taken its place in some areas where a few small, regional slaughterhouses still remain.

Grass Bone, a butcher shop and restaurant in Mystic, Conn., has been flooded with orders for everything from grass-fed ground beef to lamb hearts and trotters. To supplement these cuts, James Wayman, the chef and an owner, also makes items like garlic-rosemary pork liver mousse, pasta sauces, and kits for tacos and burger

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/dining/wholesale-grocery-delivery.html

But I can’t do any of those things now. Some restaurants, though I hope not any of these, have already said they won’t be able to come back. Many more are gone and we, or they, just don’t know it yet. The ones that are able to return won’t look, feel or act the same for a long time.

I have a bowl full of matchbooks by my bed that I’ve picked up in restaurants. Looking at them doesn’t make me feel anything except an urge to smoke. The only things I know that can make restaurants come alive when I’m outside their walls are recipes. Even when I don’t cook them, they still do that.

But I’ve had lots and lots of time lately for cooking meals that put me in touch with some place I used to go. Tonight, I’ll make Jim Lahey’s no-knead pizza dough so that tomorrow night, with my broiler running as hot as it will go, I can make pizza in the style of Co., which has been closed for two years.

When You Asked For It was still being published, people generally wanted recipes for dishes they could get at some restaurant that existed. Maybe it was on the other side of town or halfway across the world, but it was there, and the reader who loved that dish so much could still go there and eat it. A recipe in the column was a postcard from another place, one that you might go back to one day.

Any restaurant recipe now is a postcard from another time: The time before this, when you could just take a subway, a taxi, a ferry or a plane without thinking twice, and when you could arrive wherever you were going and walk down a street where the lights were on and the doors were open.

Inside, there probably wasn’t any room at the bar, but you could squeeze in, catch the bartender’s eye and, when your cocktail, so cold it almost hurt, landed in front of you, you could smile, and know that other people could see you doing it.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/dining/restaurant-recipes-at-home.html

“I took a deep breath,” she said.

She then began to think about how to keep her practice — usually done in studios or homes or on retreats — alive. She decided to take a stab at virtual teaching, even though she had no experience with it. Within a few days, Ms. Miller, 45, had downloaded the basic version of Zoom and set up lights and a camera in her home studio.

A test class for friends went well, Ms. Miller said, “so I thought, ‘Let’s open it up to a larger audience.’” She sent emails to students, new and old, inviting them to a Sunday morning class on March 29. “Just before we started the class, we reached 100, which was the limit for my version of Zoom,” she says. “I had to upgrade to Zoom Pro two minutes before the class started.”

Now, her Sunday classes average 135 participants, compared with an average of 30 to 35 before. Students log in from across the country, as well as Mexico, France and Austria.

“I’ve grown my business in a way I would have never expected,” she said.

For Travis Macy, an endurance-sports coach in Evergreen, Colo., the challenge was not solvable with a technology reboot. “It’s less of a supply issue, and more of demand,” Mr. Macy said. “All the races my clients were training to do have been canceled.”

Mr. Macy thought about how he could create new demand for his niche business. “We’re now saying, ‘OK, so if such and such a race isn’t happening this year, is there a cool mission or journey you’d like to take?’” he said. “‘Something meaningful to you?’”

He found clients eager to develop and prepare for such personal challenges. One plans to ride the Colorado Trail — 485 miles from Denver to Durango, through the Rocky Mountains — on a mountain bike. Another has expressed interest in a bike-riding tour of the West this summer with his wife. Others are planning to compete in virtual races.

“It’s highly individualized,” said Mr. Macy, who charges a monthly retainer for his services. “My role now is to help with identifying the goal, planning and guiding the client’s training and maybe helping with the route and gear.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/business/small-business-coronavirus-fitness.html

The grief was immediate and potent, pouring forth mostly on Instagram, where, to many Elizabeth Suzann customers, the brand wasn’t just a brand. They had found their people through the clothes, building networks to sell or trade purchases, or road-tripping to the company’s Nashville factory for sample sales. (The online sample sales were consistently cleared out within minutes, if not seconds; full prices for tops, bottoms and dresses typically ranged between $100 and $300.)

“I was able to form really genuine friendships because of this clothing brand,” said Emi Ito, an educator in the Bay Area. “Now we’re supporting one another through this global pandemic. It goes so much deeper than clothes.”

Elizabeth Suzann was founded in 2013 by Liz Pape, a designer who was then selling her handmade basics on Etsy. By 2017, she employed more than 30 people and pulled in about $3.3 million in sales for the year. The company continued to grow with no outside investors.

But at the end of April, Ms. Pape wrote, in the statement announcing the closing, that the financial hit from the coronavirus was “too severe for us to recover from in a healthy and responsible way.”

It was a complicated situation, she wrote, “but most simply our current sales are not sufficient to sustain the overhead and payroll of a team of any size.” (She declined to be interviewed about the situation.) In the fall, she intends to return to being a one-woman production, eventually offering sewing patterns and kits “so that this business relies less on consumption and more on skill sharing and teaching.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/style/coronavirus-elizabeth-suzann.html

The biggest worry is Legionella pneumophila. The bacteria can cause Legionnaires’ disease, a respiratory condition. It leads to death in about one in 10 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine estimates that over 52,000 Americans suffer from the disease each year.

A single small outbreak can sicken many people. During the water crisis that started in Flint, Mich., in 2014 after the city changed its water source and officials failed to inform the public of water quality problems, many people became sick. The crisis was linked to the deaths of 12 people from Legionnaires’ disease.

After an outbreak at the North Carolina Mountain State Fair last September, 135 people contracted the disease and four died, according to the state’s department of health and human services. Investigators blamed a hot tub exhibit that sent Legionella through the air and was inhaled by passers-by.

Most worrying, Legionnaires’ disease tends to affect people with compromised immune systems.

“Covid patients and survivors could be more vulnerable to this, so when they go back to work we might be concerned about another infection,” said Caitlin Proctor, a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue who, along with Dr. Whelton conducted a study that has been accepted for publication in the journal AWWA Water Science examining risks from water stagnation during the coronavirus lockdown.

Once forming in a building’s plumbing, Legionella can be dispersed through the air when toilets are flushed. Even turning on taps, as employees wash their hands to limit the spread of the coronavirus, can send water droplets into the air that carry Legionella.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/health/coronavirus-legionnaires-offices.html

A need for reopening guidance

When the Outer Banks reopen to tourists on Saturday, Pam Gutlon, the innkeeper at the White Doe Inn, will be there to welcome guests. But she is nervous about the lack of clear guidance from the health department on how best to accommodate guests.

“I’m excited to see people, but I’m also being terrified because it’s too soon to reopen,” she said. “I don’t think the state has met all the standards they said we’d need to meet before we open. We are still seeing new cases, and the rules about how to operate just aren’t clear.”

Ms. Gutlon, as well as other innkeepers and owners in North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Washington state, said that they are trying to figure out the rules for guest numbers, social distancing and serving food on their properties. For example, she said, no more than 10 people can gather, but the inn typically has about 16 guests in its eight rooms, in addition to staff — so would filling rooms be breaking the rules?

In Massachusetts, where short-term rentals (including hotels) have been banned since March, the lack of direction from authorities led 26 Martha’s Vineyard innkeepers and hotel operators to write a letter to Gov. Charlie Baker’s advisory task force earlier this month, asking for guidance about reopening. Thirty-two business owners from neighboring Nantucket also signed the letter which called the continued close of business an “impending crisis” and expressed fear about what would happen if businesses didn’t open this summer.

Governor Baker said on Monday that the state will reopen in four phases beginning around May 18, but it’s not yet clear in which phase hotels and short-term rentals will be allowed to reopen. Despite the lack of a firm date, seasonal ferry service is scheduled to begin between New York, New Jersey, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket during the first week of June; service between Oak Bluffs, on Martha’s Vineyard, and Falmouth, on Cape Cod, will begin on May 22, along with service between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Service from Boston to Cape Cod on Boston Harbor Cruises and Bay State Cruise Company is not currently running and does not have a start date.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/travel/virus-summer-tourism.html

She had worn a mask when she walked in, and was glad that Ola Garcia, her server, wore one, too. Both had their temperatures checked when they arrived, Ms. Garcia before she started her shift and Ms. Wilson at the door.

“I don’t eat just anywhere, and I am not going to other places that have opened,” Ms. Wilson said. “But I’ve been here enough, and I see what they’re doing with the cleaning and the gloves and the masks to know I’m safe.”

Restaurants are experimenting with a number of ways to keep diners and employees safe, and signal that sanitation is taken seriously. An Ohio breakfast spot hung washable clear plastic shower curtains between tables. One Atlanta restaurant requires servers to change into different-colored gloves each time they head back to a table, to assure diners that the gloves are fresh.

For other diners, all the masked waiters and plexiglass dividers in the world wouldn’t get them into a restaurant yet.

“It’s not about trusting them, it’s about trusting the idiots who are coming in,” said Dale Benerofe, a health care worker in Atlanta who used to eat out two or three times a week. “I want restaurants to open up. I really do. But not now. It’s too stressful.”

Even Danny Meyer, who wrote a book on hospitality, said in a recent interview that he had no interest in reopening his fine-dining restaurants if capacity was so reduced that it wouldn’t be profitable and the risk of contracting the virus so high that temperature-taking and face masks had to be built into service.

“What we’re dealing with, all of us, is fear,” he told me last week. “I’ve always believed hospitality is the antidote to fear. What we are usually really, really good at is to welcome people and make people feel good around a table. But that tool has been taken from our hands.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/dining/restaurants-masks-coronavirus.html

It’s a nonprofit

With its status as a nonprofit organization, Road Scholar has a cushion that commercial travel operators don’t have. It has received tax-deductible donations over the years that help offset trip planning, help low-income travelers and provide grants for family caregivers. Road Scholar is now launching a crowdfunding campaign to ask its community to help the organization during the pandemic.

“We exist to inspire and empower older people,” said Mr. Moses, not to deliver profits to a shareholder. When the travel disruption began, Mr. Moses said he sent a set of “guiding principles” to his employees. The first instruction was “to be kind to people who are calling, recognize their fear and anxiety, and do everything you can to help them,” he said.

The organization is paying group leaders whose trips were canceled, and working with other providers to get refunds or credit for unused trip activities.

It’s got a loyal customer base

Two-thirds of Road Scholar’s current customers are return travelers, according to the company, including some that have been on more than 25 trips. “The participants build intense relationships because they are on these holistic learning experiences together,” and come back with a feeling of ownership, said Mr. Moses.

Ken Gallaher, a retiree from Bartlesville, Okla., has been on 10 Road Scholar trips in the United States, Europe and Asia. He’s a repeat customer, he said, thanks to the programs’ experiences, local lecturers and the company of other curious travelers. He also said that when things go wrong, like mismatched airline schedules, the organization makes it right.

From watching the news, he was expecting his April trip to South Korea to be canceled, but when he received a personal call from Road Scholar just one day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned against nonessential travel there, he was impressed with the organization’s efficiency.

“They really take responsibility for everything they do,” Mr. Gallaher said.

Mr. Gallaher was offered a full refund, including the plane fare he had booked though Road Scholar. He opted instead to put the money toward an August trip to Europe he had signed up for with his wife, which he hopes won’t be canceled, plus a future trip.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/travel/coronavirus-road-scholar-refunds.html

But making wine is just as often a far more complicated scenario in which grape growing and wine production operate as separate entities.

Especially for younger winemakers who have not inherited vineyards or made a fortune in other businesses, buying vineyard land is often out of the question. Real estate prices are too high.

Instead, they buy grapes, investing in long-term relationships to assure a steady supply. Often, roles overlap. Winemakers may arrange to take over the management of a vineyard and farm it themselves, even though they don’t own it. And vineyard owners like Ms. Kraemer may make a little wine as a side business.

Her label is Yorba, which she mostly sells through a tasting room in Sutter Creek or through a wine club. But the tasting room had to close because of the pandemic. Right now, she said, she spends far too much time figuring out other ways to sell bottles.

“I much prefer being a farmer,” she said.

In the Applegate Valley of southern Oregon, Herb Quady also does some of everything. He owns a vineyard, sells grapes and makes wine under the label Quady North. His company, Applegate Vineyard Management, manages the farming at a number of small vineyards. He owns a custom-crush operation, Barrel 42, where clients can use equipment and the facility to make wine.

He has had discussions with his grape-buying customers and said that, with an exception or two, hardly anybody is proceeding with business as usual.

“Everybody wants to stay involved, but they’re cutting back some,” he said. “It makes sense to cut back if you are worried about cash. We all sort of do that, but it becomes a crisis when they all do that at once.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/dining/drinks/wine-farmers-coronavirus.html