Resilient amid change

In early 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) was changing the way the world did business.

Restaurants first closed, then adjusted to social distancing requirements once they were allowed to open again. Travel in airplanes was considered risky compared to vehicles. Recreational vehicles were on the roads in droves while hotels had few occupants.

COVID-19 is hardly gone from Carbon County with the arrival of the Delta variant, which is considered more contagious to all age groups. Two town halls have had to close to the public in the past two months due to outbreak amongst employees. Already Elk Mountain has canceled its Labor Day town picnic due to an outbreak in the town.

Still, people are doing more activities with other people than this time last year.

The game changer came in the beginning of 2021 when several vaccines became available to the public.

Masks, along with other mandates, were lifted throughout the country as people received their free vaccination.

The vaccine was not embraced by all people for various reasons. Some felt the vaccine had been created too quickly and were concerned of the side effects in the future. Others felt there were political reasons behind the vaccine and wanted to take their chances without it.

Enough people had been vaccinated to where the country began reopening last spring.

Carbon County has enjoyed an influx of visitors, according to recent lodging tax data. In 2019, lodging taxes reported from Carbon County in August were $110,242.10. In 2020, lodging taxes dropped to $74.009.38 with almost all municipalities and the county taking a beating.

This year, August lodging taxes were $177,223.68. Hotels and motels had an upswing since last year.

Taking the scenic route

Not all industries in tourism suffered in Carbon County as badly as lodging.

Phil McGrath, owner of Hack’s Guiding and Outfitters, said COVID-19 effected his business to a degree, but not his bottom-line.

“As far as the guiding service goes, we were very busy,” McGrath said. “There was not the drop-off that people might expect given how the situation was. A lot of people still wanted to come to Wyoming.”

He said the shutdown of global travel actually caused an uptick in his business.

“People that had planned to go to Russia and other places in the world found their plans canceled, so they came to Saratoga instead of these distant places,” McGrath said. “We also got a lot of business from people that were in RVs and campers. People were telling me all the time that they just hit the road and found places.”

McGrath said fires on the West Coast also had people coming to the North Platte River compared to what they might have enjoyed in Oregon or California.

“We actually had a pretty good darn year,” McGrath said. “This summer has been busy too. The last couple weeks has been slower but that is due to the river being a bit lower as it is all over the Rockies.”

McGrath said many fishermen have the perception the water is low and very hot August. He said the scenic rafting is still going strong this year as it did last year.

“We did have some corporate activity cancel out and some large groups, such as reunions, also cancel but my business really didn’t suffer far as numbers go,” McGrath said. “A lot of smaller groups picked up the slack.”

Food for thought

Restaurants in Carbon County found themselves more in line with what was happening to the lodging industry as restrictions changed the way they had to do business.

There was a point in 2020 where restaurants could only do curb side service and dining rooms were shuttered.

“When we shut down for two months, that hurt us, but once we opened back up, business was good,” said Judd Campbell, whose family owns the Hotel Wolf in Saratoga. “We had some trouble getting people to work last year, but it is always a little difficult to get a full staff during this time of year. Right now we are losing about five of our staff to them going back to school. Our business won’t drop off and we will be very busy for about seven more weeks.”

He said the staff left does take up the slack.

“Our team of workers have each other’s back and will go out of their way to make it easy for the Hotel Wolf’s operations,” Campbell said. “They all step up and just make it work, even though they are tired.”

Campbell said last year the numbers were excellent and this summer is the same.

“I think beyond the whole COVID crisis, Saratoga is hitting its stride as far as a place to visit and live,” Campbell said. “Yes, the pandemic did bring people to Wyoming and Saratoga last year and this year because they thought, and think, it is safer than many places, but Saratoga is finally blowing up. Brush Creek is doing their thing and opening the eyes of people in the country that the Valley is well worth visiting.”

Campbell said the Hotel Wolf has closed randomly on occasion to give the employees a chance to rest.

“We are trying not to close, because we are here to serve the communities, but sometimes we have to for the sake of all who work here,” Campbell said. “We are doing a patchwork sometimes of what we can to give the best service without hurting our staff.”

He said the back room, which usually serves about 30 dinners a night, has stayed closed all summer.

“We just don’t have the staff to open it,” Campbell said. “Covid might have damaged us for two months back in March and April, but we have made up for it during the summer.”

A restaurant that did well last year was the Grumpy Italian in Saratoga.

“We were not hurt. The phone never stopped ringing for take-out,” owner Steve Deorio said. “We opted out of the government help and opened up for take-out. We were more set up for the curb side service aspect than many restaurants. People buy pizza as take out, so we did quite well last year and this year.”

Deorio and his wife, Eden, run the restaurant mostly by themselves, so they were able to keep the Grumpy Italian open without having to worry about a large staff.

The Grumpy Italian always shuts down in January and Deorio said Feburary was a little slow, but as protocols lifted his business boomed.

“Now it is crazy,” Deorio said. “I can see all the people passing through and eating. Business was good last year and this year super busy. We have a hard time keeping up.”

Deorio said his model was always meant to be a smaller operation he and his wife could handle.

“I start at 6 a.m. and get home around 9 p.m. every day we are open,” Deorio said. “I am very lucky to have my wife as my other half in running this restaurant. Without her, we couldn’t do the numbers we do. We are a pretty good team.”

Deorio said he not only appreciated the support he has received in the past two summers from residents and visitors, but all five years he has been open.

“I really appreciate all the people that have come in and bought something from us,” Deorio said. “It means a lot to a small business.”

Krissy McIrvin, owner of the BearTrap Cafe & Bar in Riverside, said the residents of her community living nearby were essential as she faced the past two summers. She said staffing was never easy, but the pandemic made the situation worse.

The BearTrap closed for March and, in April 2020, they started curb side service.

“We were selling out almost every night,” McIrvin said. “That was the beginning of the community’s effort to keep this restaurant open and it never stopped.”

Once the dining room could open, she said local regulars would help during both summers bussing tables when the staff was overwhelmed by business.

“They know we are so short staffed that from day one of the pandemic changing how we did business, the community made sure we were okay and helped in whatever way they could,” McIrvin said. “We just got busier and busier and this summer is the busiest tourist season we have ever had. Ever.”

She said every summer there is a feeling of burnout but, this summer, McIrvin keeps asking herself, “Is this ever going to slow down”.

McIrvin said it is great for business but terrible for her staff.

“If I was doing normal summer sales, I would need a staff of 15 to be comfortable,” McIrvin said. “Right now we have eight. That means we are running with half the staff and we are doing twice the sales. I am running my staff into the ground and I hate it. Every single person on staff has to be able to do all the jobs because we have no choice.”

McIrvin said she has posted ads for help on all sources. but not one person has applied on any medium.

“Staffing is always a problem, but I never expected it to be this big of a problem,” McIrvin said. “I even have free housing and still can’t get anybody. It is insane.”

She said international students used to make up staff in past summers, but travel restrictions due to COVID-19 have stopped that source.

“I have had to stop take out twice during the summer because we were just too busy,” McIrvin said. “I can only do what I can do. Covid probably helped my business with us booming with take out, but it has gotten to the point of not being able to keep up. We are always going to try to do our best, but we struggle to keep up.”

McIrvin said tourism has always benefitted the BearTrap She is grateful as a business owner and jokingly said she feels half the country is visiting Carbon County now.

“I feel sometimes that there is a different standard that customers are expecting because they forgot how be in a restaurant,” McIrvin said. “Sometimes customers fail to look around the room and see how busy we are and ask for things I just can’t deliver at the time. I am in customer service, so I will always try to please a customer, but it is surprising what visitors expect sometimes.”

McIrvin makes clear the locals are not like this.

“The community has backed us so much, it really is amazing,” McIrvin said. “I couldn’t ask to have a business in a better place.”

John Maes, owner of Su Casa, the Mexican restaurant in Sinclair, has similar feelings on how the small town has been supportive of his business during the past year.

Maes said he never closed the restaurant. The dining room was shut but the curb side business did well. He said the dining closure did hurt his sales by 50 percent during that time in the beginning. Then, he said, sales jumped up.

“A lot of my customers really supported me. I would run into them onto the street and other places outside work and they would tell me that they were coming to get food,” Maes said. “They would tell me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t close up’.”

He said when the dining room opened back up, business went gangbusters.

“It was amazing and, although business has leveled off some, we are doing well this summer,” Maes said. “Sinclair Refinery workers give us a lot of business too. We have always had a good relationship with the refinery ever since we started. We do a lot of deliveries for lunch time.”

He said the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) helped during the time when COVID-19 was damaging restaurant businesses.

“When the PPP kicked in, it helped me keep all my workers,” Maes said. “Many of them have been with me for years and I didn’t want to let any of them go.”

Maes said staffing has been a problem for him this summer.

“We have been two people short all summer to keep up with the business,” Maes said. “I can’t seem to find any help no matter how much I advertise or put in word of mouth. It is hard getting help right now. I haven’t had to cut back our hours yet and, with winter coming on, it does slow down and we should be okay.”

Maes makes clear his success through the pandemic and years before are because he opened his business in Sinclair and Carbon County.

“I am very appreciative of all the support our customers in Sinclair have given us including the many customers that come from all over Carbon County,” Maes said. “We have been blessed with all the good people that come to eat at Su Casa. They are wonderful.”

Something to chew on

Cassie Orduno, owner of the Saratoga Sandwich Company and Bella’s Bistro in Saratoga agrees that staffing is a problem every year.

“At Bella’s we feel that we are always a little short staffed to give the service that we want customers to enjoy,” Orduno said. “I think we always wish for more staff, but this year we haven’t seen the slow times that give our staff a little break. We are very fortunate that we have a staff that pulls together when we need them to.”

Orduno and her husband, Tommy, did something not a lot of other restaurant owners would attempt. They opened the Saratoga Sandwich Company as COVID-19 was hurting many other restaurants. There is dining inside, but take out is the model for this business.

Bella’s did suffer with space constraints last year.

“Our dining room is small to begin with, so we did a lot of take out and people sat outside,” Orduno said. “The takeout did really well even though it is a different pace because the food isn’t course out, it comes out all at once. From an execution standpoint it is hard to do both fine dining and take out.”

Bella’s will still do take out when possible, but Orduno said sometimes the kitchen is at capacity and take out must be cut off.

“Dining room takes precedence over take out,” Orduno said. “Once the patio closes, we can ramp up the to-go business because there are still plenty of people nervous about Covid right now.”

Orduno feels opening the Saratoga Sandwich Company was done at a good time during the pandemic.

“We opened in August last year and, although COVID was still happening, it was not like the spring,” Orduno said. “I think with people able to take sandwiches right out the door, people felt comfortable with us right off the bat.”

Orduno said she felt this summer for Bella’s has been very busy in comparison to past summers, not just the time of COVID-19.

“I do want to say we are grateful to all the customers that supported us through this past year as we adjusted,” Orduno said. “It is not something we take for granted at either place.”

Firewater Public House (Firewater) was hit hard by the Covid-19 restrictions. It was closed for three months and owner Danny Burau took two rounds of PPP to keep his staff and restaurant solvent.

“When COVID hit, we were going into year three, which is about when a restaurant starts putting money away,” Burau said. “Year one you get things running, year two systems come into place and then year three we dealt with Covid. It knocked us down.”

Burau said business was good last summer, but seating limitations and other protocols made it difficult to operate. Closing from November to February gave him a chance to recalibrate the model he had started with.

The biggest problem this summer is getting staff. It has been so difficult, he has been forced to cut his hours of operation so lunch and weekend brunch have disappeared.

“I had 25 people say they would take a job with us over the past year and then I would never hear from them again,” Burau said. “I was offering $18 an hour and I rented a three bedroom trailer for $1,500 a month that included everything and that I was including with the pay and I had no takers. None.”

Burau started Firewater with the intention of being a venue open seven days a week serving lunch and dinner. For two years he branded the restaurant as a place that was open when other places were not.

“I am proud of what we accomplished and we worked hard at being consistent,” Burau said. “That was the most important things I took from my marketing education, consistency is key. It kills me that I have had to change my model and customers have had to wonder when I am open.”

Lack of staffing has stopped him from utilizing the ‘Fire Truck’, a food truck he bought with the idea of taking his food all over the county.

“I wanted to be able to go to Sinclair, Rawlins and Encampment,” Burau said. “I wanted to take it to Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow so people could know what Firewater was. It isn’t for people up north to come to us, so I wanted them to know what we offered. I have taken the truck out four times since I bought it. The truck is a decoration in my parking lot.”

Burau said he had to take items off his menu because anything that was labor intensive just became unacceptable.

“I was so happy with my menu before COVID hit. I had to take off my artichoke appetizer ,which people loved, and the duck,” Burau said. “It has been heartbreaking.”

Burau said he is rethinking his original model.

“We are exploring new techniques and food items and it is a lot of adaptation,” Burau said. “It is not for lack of guests, but staff, and I don’t want the dining experience at Firewater to be compromised. So adaptation has been unavoidable this summer. I am just grateful for our customers’ patience as we adjust.”

Vickie and Vernon Scott, owners of The Virginian Hotel in Medicine Bow, said construction workers on the wind projects helped their business as they had to shut down the dining room and bar. Their take out business did well and they couple said they had good support from the locals too.

“This spring we did really well,” Vernon said. “Last year was pretty good and this year has been good. I would not say this summer was better because there may be more tourists coming through this year, but there were a lot of visitors last year coming through with RVs.”

“Some projects closed down and that took away from business this year,” Vickie said. “But those projects helped us last year when other places in the county didn’t have these folk.”

“The mine reclamation in Hanna has helped us a lot,” Vernon said. “Wind turbine maintenance has been good to us also. So we have benefited from the projects going on up north as well as tourism.”

The Scotts said staffing ha salso been a problem for them.

“Staffing is always a problem every year during summer,” Vickie said. “Our staff we have works hard and sticks by us, like we stuck by them during the worst of the pandemic restrictions that was having so much close down.”

The Scotts both agreed their community has been supportive through both summers and that is the joy of having their business in Medicine Bow.

Whether it is a lodging facility, river guide business or a restaurant, last year’s COVID-19 summer changed how businesses operated in some form. All are coping this summer in their own way.

One thing that comes across clearly; there is a resiliency in Carbon County businesses and communities the virus and its after effects has not been able to destroy.