Southern Illinois businesses attempt to bounce back from pandemic economy – The Southern

Sinisi was preparing to open her first brick-and-mortar storefront restaurant — Sinisi’s on Main — in Anna earlier this year and had everything ready to go by early March. “So I thought, you know what, I’ll wait for March 17,” she recalled — the day Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered all bars and restaurants to close after a new virus had begun making its way around the state and country.

At the time, she wasn’t thinking much about COVID-19. While the virus was gaining a foothold in Chicago, Southern Illinois had yet to report a single case.

She was able to open March 17 as planned, but only to offer curbside and pickup to-go orders. Sinisi said she had to throw away much of the beer she purchased to stock her bar for a grand opening. Bars were fully closed until early June, and then only allowed to open at partial capacity.

Across Southern Illinois, small businesses like Sinisi’s have faced unprecedented challenges caused by the pandemic. The region’s backbone — mom and pop shops — have weathered financial upheaval and grappled with outbreaks among employees, forcing them to temporarily close even after reopening. Many of them repeat a common refrain: Will this ever end?

But businesses are also rebuilding against the odds — including Sinisi’s.

People are banding together to help one another. The hardship has sparked creative and cooperative business ventures and Southern Illinois is experiencing a reawakening about the importance of small businesses to the regional economy.

“One of the other things I’ve been encouraged by is kind of a side effect to all of this,” said Paul Bradley, the office manager of HQ & Company in Marion, a salon and spa owned by his husband, Fred James. “I’ve seen a resurgence of consumers with regard to that buy local/shop local … because the small businesses are the ones getting hurt the most by all of this.”

Lynn Andersen Lindberg, interim executive director of SIU’s Office of Innovation and Economic Development, said, unquestionably, these are difficult times for the many small businesses who make up the regional economy. That’s especially true, she said, for the restaurant and personal service industry. “It’s coming at business owners right now from every angle you can possibly imagine,” she said.

Even through unprecedented times among the small business community, Lindberg said she has been impressed with the ingenuity throughout the region. She mentioned the popular Southern Illinois Eats group on Facebook, which has nearly 30,000 members.

Throughout the pandemic, William Lo — co-founder of the group and manager at New Kahala in Carbondale — and other group administrators have provided information about places offering to-go and delivery options.

The owners of Cristaudo’s later teamed up with the Southern Illinois Eats team to create the Collaborative Kitchen — a project where various local restaurants take turns offering affordable weekly meals to community members, while also raising funds to support business operations.

Lindberg said another example of innovation during the shutdown was 17th Street Barbecue, under the direction of Amy Mills, offering weekly large family meal packages which featured food, drinks and desserts from regional establishments on a rotating basis.

Not all businesses have been affected the same, she noted, as those deemed essential could continue operating. Specialty manufacturing companies shifted to offer high-demand products in some cases including Carbondale-based Com-Pac International Inc.

The company quickly stood up a pop-up production line in March to help meet worldwide demand for medical specimen shipping bags. Other types of brick-and-mortar businesses moved to online sales and curbside pickup. This was a boon for area IT companies as businesses sought help updating their websites and online security features, she said.

There are reasons to be hopeful, Lindberg said, while noting the Illinois Small Business Development Center — the oldest program offered under the umbrella of her office — has experienced a “very interesting spike” in people seeking consulting services because they want to start a new or complementary business.

“We have some clients who are saying, ‘How am I going to make it? If we shut down again, I can’t,’” she said. “And others saying: ‘You know, I’ve found an opportunity here that might work and I need your help putting together a business plan to take to the bank to look at a loan to get started.’”

Cary Minnis, executive director of the Greater Egypt Regional Planning and Development Commission, agreed. Minnis said he doesn’t want to downplay the deep financial losses some business owners and their employees are suffering, including those who have had to close their doors or others who may be struggling to hang on.

Minnis said he also recognizes “for a lot of people that it is extremely tough right now” as many remain unemployed throughout the region. The June unemployment rate for the Carbondale-Marion metropolitan area was 12.3% — up from 4.1% in June 2019, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s most recently available monthly data.

Despite the increased unemployment rate, it is an improvement from the last several months — the unemployment rate in the Carbondale-Marion region was 15% in May, and 17.1% in April. IDES will release regional unemployment data for July later this month.

“But there is reason to be optimistic for what happens on the other side of this,” Minnis said. While some economic development projects may be in a holding pattern, he said that there is a lot of active planning ongoing and projects are moving forward. A notable one, he said, is the construction of an additional hangar at Southern Illinois Airport in rural Jackson County. The hangar will house aerospace-focused workforce training programs, according to a July press release from U.S. Rep. Mike Bost’s office announcing a $3.3 million federal grant to aid construction.

DCEO Acting Executive Director Michael Negron said the state is seeing a return of “some of those jobs that disappeared during the darkest days of the COVID crisis back in April.” Trend lines in employment and economic activity are moving up across the state. That’s a positive sign, he said, though “they’re nowhere where we want them to be.”

Some regional business owners criticized Gov. J.B. Prtizker’s early and aggressive shutdown in March. There were calls for a more regionalized approach, given that at the time, Southern Illinois had only reported a few cases, and there was none in some counties. In May, Pritzker announced a reopening plan that split the state first into four regions, and then later into 11.

Negron said that approach makes sense, but wasn’t possible early on. The state, like much of the country, could not access adequate masks and other personal protective equipment. Hospitals were concerned about receiving more patients than they could manage. Testing capacity was woefully inadequate. “You can do a targeted approach when you have the infrastructure to do it,” he said.

Negron said the state had to prioritize citizen’s health and safety, and believes the governor’s plan did that. But limiting the virus’ spread is also directly linked to economic recovery, he said.

“Ultimately, there is no economic recovery without the pandemic — the growth rates of cases and hospitalizations — significantly slowing down,” he said. To help make up for businesses’ financial losses, Negron said the state has crafted several programs utilizing federal CARES Act funding given to states, which include the Downstate Small Business Stabilization Program and the Business Interruption Grant (BIG) program the governor unveiled this week.

In an initial round of funding, numerous area businesses, including restaurants, gyms, barber shops and salons, received BIG awards in amounts of $10,000 or $20,000. Other Southern Illinois businesses previously received funding from the downstate stabilization program in varying amounts up to $25,000. Negron said the state will make additional funding available in both programs — and Southern Illinois businesses are encouraged to apply.

Travis Walczynski, owner of Saluki Gymnastics in Carbondale, said he was notified his business would receive a BIG award this week — welcome news after seeing the enrollment at his recently acquired gym drop by almost half because of the pandemic. He said the grants have been a financial lifeline throughout the pandemic. They are more ideal than government loan options, he said, because many businesses are hesitant to take on debt they may not be financially stable enough to pay back. 

“As much as we are open again, we are nowhere near full strength,” Walczynski said. “These last few months have been just as hard financially, if not harder than when we were closed. At least I didn’t have some of the bills and now those are back, but the income isn’t there.” 

Molly Blew, who owns Molly’s Pint Brewpub in Murphysboro with her husband, shared similar sentiments. While she and her husband have looked at different financial resources, they’ve been able to lean on local grants and loans to help fill the gaps — including applying for and receiving a “MERCE Grant” from the City of Murphysboro.

About $38,000 was repurposed from a business infrastructure program to help businesses impacted by the pandemic, according to Murphysboro city officials. The assistance reimburses a business for some kind of bill payment and the business owner is to reimburse the city for 10% of the bill within 12 months. The City of Murphysboro has given out about $18,000 in assistance to local businesses through the program.

Sinisi’s on Main received nearly $14,000 from the state’s business stabilization program, which Sinisi said she plans to use to cover expenses and lost revenue. 

Though a new storefront, Sinisi’s on Main was already rooted in Anna. Sinisi moved to Anna 11 years ago when a new Walgreens went up on Vienna Street. Her in-laws had long been partial to the area. Sinisi said her father-in-law grew up in Italy and decided to buy farmland here some years ago because the rolling Shawnee hills reminded him of the Italian countryside. She also fell in love with the area. But there was one thing missing.

“We missed the food. That’s what we missed the most,” she said. “We didn’t miss the traffic. We didn’t miss anything else. We missed the food.” She opened a food cart on Main Street, and it’s enjoyed popularity for years. Turns out, she wasn’t the only transplant who missed the Chicago-style menu. Sinisi said customers have been eager to return — and generous with their patronage, but businesses continue to face a lot of uncertainty.

On June 8, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared what many American families knew intuitively by their own situation: the U.S. had entered a recession. The bureau’s committee charged with making such determinations noted the “unprecedented magnitude” of the decline in employment and production across economic sectors and the nation.

The national bureau, in making its determination, said the recession could be short lived — but there are many unknowns. Negron said uncertainty can have an affect on consumer confidence.

“I don’t think there’s any economist that can tell you where Illinois or the country is going to be in three months because so much of this is tied up into the course the pandemic takes,” he said. “I think that takes us back to the utmost importance of taking the right public health measures, because we’re not going to get back to normal if you have outbreaks happening across the state in different pockets.”

Pritzker has repeatedly made pleas to Congress to send additional federal assistance to states and local governments. Congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump’s White House have been haggling for weeks, but failed to reach a deal on how much to spend and other key provisions before the Senate recessed on Thursday until after Labor Day.

Despite the ability for some businesses to reopen with added safety measures under the “Restore Illinois” plan, Blew said there are still challenges with patrons feeling comfortable to go into brick-and-mortar bars and restaurants. She said she was spending more in bills and cleaning supplies than the revenue the brewpub was bringing in, so they had to scale back their operation.

“We shuttered back down to doing growler fills only, which we had been doing since the beginning of the shutdown,” Blew said. “We went from our normal revenue stream to probably a fifth of that, so we took a pretty big hit in the brewery.”

She then was furloughed from her job as a neurodiagnostic technician in the second week of April, but that allowed her to qualify for the federal pandemic unemployment assistance program. Her husband, who works full time, also was able to apply for the assistance under the PUA program.

“That really really helped us out because we were able to continue paying our bills even though the brewery was pretty much nonoperational,” Blew said. “Our business would have probably closed for good if we didn’t have that extra money for our business.”

Bradley, the office manager of HQ & Company salon and spa in Marion, said the shutdown was hard on the business his husband owns, but they are adjusting as best they can. During the months the business was closed, Bradley said a decision was made not to charge rent to the beauticians who rent their spaces from them. But that didn’t stop their own utility and mortgage bills from coming due. He said the company, a decade old, accessed a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan to help with expenses — but it’s a loan, not a grant.

“It was a struggle for a couple of months. But we made it through that.” Bradley said that one thing that has helped is that many of their customers, most of whom are female, were eager to come back when the salon and spa was able to reopen in June with mask and new social distancing requirements in force. That helped bring in needed revenue early on.

Several weeks later, Bradley said business has leveled off, but is steady — about what it would be typically this time of year. As the virus continues its spread across the region, he’s hopeful that businesses like theirs can remain open. But it takes everyone doing their part, he said.

Aside from the economic implications of the pandemic, Blew said not only does the brewery sell beer but it tends to “create community” as well — an aspect sometimes forgotten in the shadow of the pandemic. “People not being able to get together and have that social interaction has had to be super hard,” she said. “Eventually, we’re going to get through this and we’re going to be able to get back together again and enjoy each other’s company.”

Despite having to close and taking a financial hit due to the pandemic, Blew said she and her husband are motivated to keep moving forward knowing they’re doing their part in keeping patrons safe. “We’re doing this for the greater good,” she said.

“It’s hard right now because people can’t hang out with us now (but) we’re actively keeping people from getting sick and possibly dying,” Blew said. “It’s worth it in the long run not being able to be together — for our business to take a hit financially — to know those people are still going to be here with us when things get back to normal.”

Reporting by Molly Parker in Anna and Marion, and Brian Munoz in Murphysboro and Carbondale.