Coronavirus Diaries (7/8): Time Will Tell
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In this latest round of reports from breweries trying to survive the Coronavirus, I noticed a theme in the writing: after nearly four months of the crisis, with no end in sight, brewers are starting to get both poetic and philosophical. These messages are so heartfelt and so full of important information that I’m not going to do an omnibus roundup. I’ll give everyone their moment in the spotlight. Pay attention and listen. This is the human cost.
Today we have Ben Parsons, co-founder of Baerlic Brewing in Southeast Portland. Baerlic has two Portland taprooms and a production brewery sending cans out to grocery stores. Be forewarned: there’s a lot of profanity in this post. It is integral to Ben’s message, and I’m leaving it in.
Things were looking slow and steady and predictable with re-opening safely, then the shit hit the fan when the state punted Multnomah County. Economically, this bought every other county more paying customer time without making the county any safer. Or did it? That’s the rub with that one. From a safety standpoint, should the rest of the state have opened weeks prior? Maybe. Probably not. Time will tell. With the spikes we’re seeing now was opening everything up all a vain attempt to gain some sort of ignorant normalcy? Time will tell. What a fucking roller coaster.
When this first hit—when the government mandated that we shut down—it was a fight or flight moment that triggered a “failure is not an option” energy as we pivoted to an e-commerce and home delivery company overnight. In hindsight, the chemical reactions in that fight or flight moment were crucial to pulling it all off. These last several weeks watching the proverbial grass grow on reopening our taprooms (and completely overhaul our business model…again) has been some of the most stressful times throughout this whole thing for me. How can we prepare to take on a really big pivot in our business model—again at such a slow and unpredictable pace? Time will tell.
If we open up to onsite pints, is home delivery dead? We have staff that are full-time delivery drivers now that used to be bartenders. If they go back to bartending, who’s going to do deliveries? Do we still do home deliveries? Time will tell. If we open up to onsite pints, will anyone show up? If I bring my staff back from furlough, are they fucked on tips when no one shows up? Will my staff even want to come back? Can I sleep at night with what we’ve done to mitigate risk? Have we done enough to guarantee the safety of our staff? Can I guarantee that I won't fall down a flight of fucking stairs? Time will tell.
Sometimes it feels like we’re rearranging the chairs on the Titanic…again. Sometimes I don’t want to be the boss anymore, to have to make the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make. Again and again and again. With such high stakes. I’m not a public health official, but I play one in a pandemic. And there’s no fucking end in sight. The feds dropped the ball to the states. The states dropped the ball to the counties. And the counties are fumbling around with something they’ve never done before and so many lives and jobs and businesses are at stake and our only option is to trust that they’re doing their best and that we’ll all be okay. But will their best be enough? Will the public wear a fucking mask? Will some asshole come into one of our locations and put my staff at risk? Am I that asshole putting my staff at risk? Time will tell.
But alas, we must go on. My life is in this business. My life IS this business. We’ve built this thing with our bare hands. And every day I have worked and worked and worked to make this better. To be a better employer. To be a better brewer. To be a better human. But, failure is not an option. So we just keep going, into the abyss.
The best we can do is the best we can do, right? Both of our taprooms are open as of two Fridays ago, but with only outdoor beer garden seating. Of course we’ve got the touchless ordering, sanitizer, tables 8’ apart, and on and on and on. The Barley Pod was easy, we just limited all the seating to an outdoor area already familiar with the concept of a beer garden and we’re good. In southeast, we turned our back parking lot—located at se 10th and Grant—into a rather beautiful 6,000 sq. ft. Super Secret Beer Club beer garden—ssshhh, don't tell anyone. We dropped a bunch of money to gentrify the neighborhood, as it turns out. First —and hopefully last—time I’ve done that. There’s a homeless camp that’s been planted there since the pandemic began that we were able to cover up with some greenery. Just sweep ‘em under the rug, I guess. Being in the southeast industrial district, we’re used to seeing homelessness on the regular. But this is the first time I’ve had the task to mask that with some artificial fucking foliage. But I’ve got a business to run, right? It’s my responsibility to keep things afloat so that we can keep our employees working and making a living and the business healthy, right?
Then early last week I hear that there’s a fucking COVID outbreak at two breweries in the Portland area—one of which my brother is part-owner of and runs their taproom and the other is at one of our friends breweries that opened just two weeks after we did in 2014. I’m elated when I find out my brother and my nephew tested negative for COVID and that my mom doesn’t have to get tested this time around. But I’m scared that a few of my friends have fucking COVID. They’re young, healthy and mildly symptomatic, so they get to binge watch reruns and stay home for two weeks, right? No big deal, right? Time will tell.
What a fucked up time to be alive. But, that’s the world we live in and failure is not an option, right? Is all of this enough to keep the business going? Today, yes. Absolutely. We’ve had a great response to opening up and we’ve had tremendous support over the last several months and we’re taking in enough revenue to have all but one staff member back on. Will it last? Will they shut us down again next week? Will I get hit by a bus? Time will tell.
I guess the next big question on my mind is what the fuck do I do when the rain comes…?
PHOTO: BAERLIC BREWING