If COVID closures have taught us anything over the last 10 months, it's that we normally spend way too much time doing bar stuff. NOT ANYMORE BABY!! Now that we're closed for indoor service, we have time to do other things. Like blogging! We're soooo 2008 right now.
Our recent shutdown, the result of a complaint from a very concerned citizen, was just the thing we needed to drag us back into a perpetual state of un-opening. When we were first closed from March-June, we decided to take on a hefty remodel inside the bar, which consisted of exposing a bunch of old brick walls and rebuilding the bar top from scratch. It was a lot of work, and it took us a full three months to finish. But we ended up with a pretty awesome space, and just in time to throw the doors back open on June 26.
Fast-forward five months. We had two bartenders test positive for COVID the weekend before Thanksgiving, so we made the call to shut down for a few days while making sure nobody else was passing the bug around. When we re-opened, it was into the Hop Garden on Black Friday for outdoor-only service. We spent a good chunk of time and BIG funds bringing the Garden up to snuff for cold-weather operations earlier this fall, and this was our big moment. We were hopeful things would go well.
Narrator: things did not go well.
Turns out it's easy to heat buildings, but tents? Not so much. We blasted $50 of propane heat into that tent every day and stuffed straw bales into almost every air gap, and it still wasn't enough to make a comfortable area for people to enjoy a drink. Customers preferred to find bars that were still open indoors. And who can blame customers for that? I mean, we like being indoors when it's cold too. So we took a beating in the Hop Garden for a week before giving in, and moving back to indoor sales at Sportsman's.
Then yesterday, after having been open inside for just a couple days, we were visited by our friendly neighborhood liquor control agent for a complaint that we were open for business. Apparently we have at least one fan who pays close attention to our operations. Nice! So anyways, we're closed now. And while we figure out what our next move is for the bar, we're making virtual moves in our virtual spaces. Big noisy Facebook post to rally the troops, check. Blogging, check. Online store ... almost. Be on the lookout for that soon.
Yeah, this is what happens when we don't have a bar to run. Hopefully it doesn't last too long, because blogging takes a lot more effort than pouring a pint. Cheers!
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