One Bar. Twelve Weeks. Seventeen Lives in Lockdown.

Mr. Kachingwe, 40, was used to risks. His childhood took him from Chegutu, a village in Zimbabwe without electricity, to Coralville, Iowa, where his stepfather had gotten a job as a professor when he was 10. Fifteen years later, he moved to San Francisco and ended up managing a popular Senegalese spot known for its dance floor. (The owner promoted him because he didn’t drink.) Eventually he thought owning his own place would give him more time to play guitar and write screenplays (wrong), so he looked to Oakland.

“The first goal was completely selfish,” he said. “And then immediately, you realize it has nothing to do with you.”

The Hatch grew into a community hub. The narrow two-story bar, jacketed in reclaimed fence boards and local art, became a hangout for the city’s artists, musicians and writers, as well as waiters, bartenders and baristas. Upstairs were free comedy and rap shows, and Mr. Kachingwe hung a bedsheet to project obscure movies. The success helped drive sales from about $250,000 in its first year to more than $700,000 in 2019.

Now — on March 17, a Tuesday — Mr. Kachingwe and Ms. Easterbrook were packing up the booze and boarding up the windows. On top of the $8,800 in rent, an advertising contract with Yelp was $1,000 a month. The point-of-sale system was $284. Cable and internet, $180. The alarm system, $165. Ms. Easterbrook poured a beer and then remembered that the six tapped kegs would also soon go flat — another $1,200. “We’re about to find out what we can and can’t pay for,” Mr. Kachingwe said.

Within days, he had a creative plan for survival: Use the Hatch’s tiny kitchen to cater meals for a government operations hub a few miles away. He had already met with city officials.

“We have a saying that closed mouths don’t get fed,” he said. “My main goal is just trying to figure out how we can possibly, one, survive, and two, get people anything in their pockets.”

A few days later, Mr. Kachingwe said the catering idea was looking unlikely. But he had a new plan: The Hatch would become a takeout joint. “We’re going to see what it looks like,” Mr. Kachingwe said. “Because I have no clue.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/business/coronavirus-california-lockdown-small-business.html