The region’s economy was hard hit by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and over the course of the last year it has been a constant struggle to survive for so many local businesses.
It began on March 16, 2020, when Gov. Chris Sununu directed all restaurants to transition to takeout and delivery only, and less than two weeks later advised that all non-essential businesses close.
The restrictions, while done solely in the interest of public health and to combat the spread of COVID-19, caused a ripple effect that can be felt to this day. But local business owners have found ways to make it through a year with perseverance, adaptation and some Yankee ingenuity that will ensure that the local economy remains when things go back to where they were before March of 2020.
Local eating establishments were one of the hardest hit groups throughout 2020. The switch to takeout-only forced restaurants to completely change their business model, limitations on capacity caused profit margins to shrink and the uneasiness of customers created new challenges once they were able to reopen.
It was more than two months from the time Sununu directed restaurants to only conduct business through takeout that they were allowed to reopen for outdoor dining and another month after that before indoor seating could happen under strict guidelines.
“The last 12 months, there have certainly been highs and lows,” said Harris Welden, owner of Pearl and Bantam in Peterborough. Welden operates two fine dining establishments, so the switch to take out wasn’t exactly part of the business model. It worked for a period of time, but it was a huge downturn from the start of 2020.
“The first three months of 2020 we were actually doing record sales,” he said, following three straight years of increasing numbers.
And in those early days, there were plenty of factors that caused some anxious moments.
“We were seriously concerned about the supply chain,” Welden said. “Beef we had bought for 10 years all of a sudden, it’s hard to find.” The produce company he used for a decade stopped delivering and his laundry service closed. Even operating came with questions.
“I’d ask myself. ‘should we even be open right now? Is it safe for my staff?’ ” Welden said.
Business was down and it led to some unavoidable furloughs. By the time August rolled around, with both indoor and outdoor seating available and COVID-19 case numbers down, Welden saw a bounce back. Between August and the end of October “the business was coming back to pre-pandemic numbers,” he said.
Then one of his employees tested positive and he shut down both restaurants for nine days. And that surge in business all but went away following his reopening, causing the worst quarter financially for the year. He did receive assistance through the Paycheck Protection Program and is awaiting word if it will be forgiven.
“There was a period of time where I was like ‘are we going to run out of money,’” Welden said.
With guidelines evolving, Welden said he was hesitant to invest money in things like more outdoor tables and chairs and barriers between indoor tables in order to increase capacity, but ultimately did.
“It was like every two months we were in this different mode of operation,” Welden said.
There is, though, optimism moving forward.
“Especially the last couple weeks, with more of the population getting vaccinated, more people are coming out,” Welden said. “There’s definitely a sense of hope.”
Mike Shea, President and CEO of Belletetes, which has nine locations including in Peterborough and Jaffrey, said early on things got very busy with people staying at home and looking to cross a few projects off the list.
“And I’d say that trend has continued,” Shea said. “We’re still very busy.”
The construction business was booming before the pandemic and Shea said they haven’t seen any indication of a drop off. Though there are two major challenges.
“It’s the rising prices and material shortages,” Shea said. Those things are typically cyclical, but Shea has not seen price increases like this that have remained. Over the course of 30 weeks last year, Shea said there was a sustained increase in costs.
“Which for the most part is unheard of,” he said.
There are also so many materials – from lumber to petroleum based products to drywall to metal – that are hard to come by. Some are based on allocations.
“Its been very, very challenging,” he said. They also had to shut down for a few days at the end of June after an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
And it makes it hard to decide how much to buy of what because on one hand due to the shortages if you can find materials, you want them for customers, but don’t want to pay a premium if they will go down.
“I’m hopeful prices will soften,” Shea said. “Because we’re in an uncomfortable situation where we have to pass on the increase to our customers and at some point it becomes unaffordable.”
Performance Health & Fitness closed when the order came down for all non-essential businesses to do so and wasn’t able to reopen until June under strict guidelines. Thing were predictably slow, but then owner Hunter Burgess said he started to see an uptick in the fall as the weather cooled. Then an electrical fire in October forced him to shut down again until the middle of February.
“It’s been a challenge,” Burgess said just before reopening. “But a lot of small businesses are going through a lot of challenges.”
Cooper’s Hill Public House was forced to change its operation like all other restaurants and had limited outdoor seating so it was slow going for many months. Then at the end of August, a burst pipe forced a closure that stretched for three months.
Paul Dell of Hancock, owner of SportsStop.com, said in July that from January to March his online lacrosse equipment company was enjoying its best start to a year since he opened his operation in 2001.
“We were looking golden,” Dell said at the time. But by the middle of March, it all fell apart. With spring sports seasons canceled and few orders coming in, Dell partnered with Smugglers’ Notch Distillery in Jeffersonville, Vermont, to sell hand sanitizer and it helped navigate those first few months.
Others had to adapt as well. Pickity Place in Mason is not exactly the kind of restaurant that screams takeout.
“We’re a destination restaurant. We’re not the kind of place people pop in for takeout,” said owner Keith Grimes in June. But to Grimes’s surprise, the takeout business took off and people also started to eat their meals on the property picnic style.
When Kari Lindstrom, owner of The Melamine Cup in Jaffrey, had to close due to state restrictions, she started a weekly Facebook Live event to show off inventory in the store and curbside sales took off.
Despite having to close her store and a long delay in receiving unemployment, Black Swan owner Susan Voss decided to direct her attention to the community. In May, Voss said she made hundreds of masks to distribute to organizations in New Hampshire and Vermont, and even got a single mask order from California. And she did it for free.
The real estate industry saw a huge boost during the pandemic as people looked to move into the region from more populated areas and others decided it was time for a change after spending months stuck at home.
A total of 783 homes were sold in the 16-town Ledger-Transcript coverage area in 2020, even with prices skyrocketing. Agreements happened quick, so it was a great time to be a seller. But after a flurry of activity, the lack of inventory caught up with the market and the biggest challenge now is finding homes that are available.
The grocery business saw an unprecedented demand in the first few weeks and months of the pandemic. People went into panic mode, buying anything they could and it created some tense moments where items like meat, toilet paper, paper towels and pasta were hard to come by. Eventually the stock came back, but it created quite a stressful time for customers.
MilliporeSigma saw a significant increase in demand for its single-use and virus filtration technologies, which they supply to more than 50 companies working on COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
Those in the outdoor recreation sector saw a huge boost from the pandemic, kayaks and boats, fishing equipment and RVs were all in high demand.
Despite all the uncertainty, the region saw many new businesses get off the ground.
Sonny’s Market in New Ipswich opened at the end of March, giving local residents another option for food at a time where buying was at an all time high and shortages questioned the future of the supply chain.
Copper Kettle in Wilton, a combination of prepared meals and tap house, opened its doors on Main Street in the summer. MaryLou Cassidy officially opened Integrative Health & Wellness Clinic in Dublin for patients on June 1. A pair of hair salons opened in Wilton and Peterborough in 2020, and a tattoo shop began operation in Peterborough in September.
Beepa & Lulu’s in Peterborough was originally supposed to open on March 16, but it would be more than three months later before they welcomed customers in the restaurant. Monadnock Appliance put out the open sign for a new storefront in Rindge in May. Sweet Macaron, a specialty bakery opened in Peterborough, began operations in February.
The Keene and Peterborough Chambers began the process of merging in 2020 and it became official at the end of the year. Grappelli’s Pizza in Peterborough changed hands in the fall and Rudy Rosalez, owner of the Woodbound Inn in Rindge decided to reopen the Hometown Diner after its closing due to the pandemic.
2020 is a year most business owners would like to forget, but making it through the worst of the pandemic and restrictions has given new hope for what lies ahead.
“Now that we made it through this, we can do anything,” Welden said.