By Joel Weiner and Juliet O”Neill
Lowertown’s business community is diverse, ranging from low to high tech, from small specialty shops to big-box stores and from skilled tradespeople and artisans to medical, legal and financial professionals. All changed in one way or another when the federal government issued a health advisory on March 13 to contain the global COVID19 pandemic in Canada
Most had to shut their doors and stop doing business, assuming the lockdown would last a few weeks before discovering that it would drag on for months. Others qualified as essential services and were permitted to remain open with precautionary measures in place. A third category barred in-store traffic but quickly turned to online or telephone shopping and used delivery services or curbside pickup to fulfill orders.
One business that stayed open from the start was Michel’s Tobacco and Variety, at 262 Dalhousie Street. “It was very eerie,” recalls Wilson, the owner. “The Market was deserted, except for homeless people. Working people just weren’t here. The streets and the sidewalks were empty.” During this period, Wilson had far fewer customers than usual, but they bought more, either as loyal clients helping him out or people looking to avoid long lines at supermarkets. Still, his sales dropped by more than 50%. “For me, it was like moving from one shutdown to another,” says Wilson. “I shut the store for three weeks to go overseas and had just reopened when the pandemic struck. But given the situation we’re all in, I really can’t complain.”
Down the street, at 176 Dalhousie, Ideal Coffee was closed for a few weeks until it started providing delivery and pickup of online orders. Now open again, its menu is far more limited than when it served full meals and drinks, and hosted folk nights and popular Brazil nights featuring black bean soup, live music and dancing. Today, it’s only one customer at a time in through the front door to pick up coffee beans or a hot brew, fresh scones or a sandwich of the day, and then quickly out the back door.
“It’s a shift back to basics,” says manager Paige Blacklock. By late May, Ideal had recovered 45% of its clientele but it was too soon to plan a return to normal. “The concept of normal hasn’t been redefined yet,” says Blacklock.
In fact, most owners interviewed by The Echo say that operations will likely remain transformed for some time to come, even as public health restrictions are steadily eased and more and more. businesses open to customers. The new safety procedures will stay on for a while, at least, limiting the number of people in establishments at any one time; specifying how they can move around; requiring the use of facemasks; regularly sanitizing counters and equipment; and using tap-only credit card machines instead of cash. A number of businesses expect that several of these approaches could become permanent, especially cashless transactions.
Looking forward
As for what lies ahead economically in Lowertown’s businesses community, it seems to be anybody’s guess. Views typically range from deep concern to cautious optimism, even though everyone shares a fervent hope that things will eventually return to normal.
“I don’t think that anyone really has the answer,” says Gabriele O’Brien. She sells local maple syrup products at Gateway on the southeast corner of George Street and ByWard Market. The stand remained open all through the lockdown because there’s enough room on the broad sidewalk for proper social distancing.
But even though the rules are relaxing, O’Brien reports that business is still quite slow. “There aren’t a lot of people out and who knows what will be?” Normally, she moves across the street from April to late fall and works a popular flower stand on the opposite corner; in mid-June, it still wasn’t there.
At Blue Nile, a grocery and convenience store at the northwest corner of King Edward and St. Andrew, owner Debalke Melaku was able to stay open from the outset. “People in the neighbourhood wanted to help me, so they came in to shop,” he reports. “I couldn’t have carried on without their support.”
But Melaku thinks that the immediate future will be tough for small businesses like his. “People are still afraid of the virus and are not going out like they used to,” he says. “There is also difficulty getting supplies, and I have the same overhead expenses.”
That prognosis is shared by Etienne Humez, owner of L’HEXGONE Menswear at 252 Dalhousie Street. He reopened on May 19, when regulations permitted. “I think it will take a minimum of six months for small businesses like mine to get back to usual levels of activity,” he says. Currently, he’s letting no more than three people in at once, wearing gloves and a mask when taking measurements, and quarantining all new merchandise for 24 hours.
Quarantine is also standard procedure at Milk Shop, a clothing and gift boutique on William Street. Apparel that’s been tried on but not purchased is isolated for a day and then steamed before being put on sale again. Among other new procedures are hopping by appointment only and no more than two customers in the shop at a time. .
“Two thirds of our clients are gone,” says owner Inaas Kiryakos. “One third, a loyal customer base, remains intact. The rest is equally divided between students and tourists who are unlikely to return this summer.”
Students and tourists also comprise a large segment of Fazi Kapro’s clientele. He owns Cumberland Pizza, a Lowertown institution for almost 50 years and currently located at 152 Nelson Street. Kapro says that his sales are down 50%. “Much of our business comes from university residences and tourists,” he explains. “But the students went home, the hotels are empty and I don’t know when they’ll come back.”
Volume is also down significantly at 341 Dalhousie, where Bytown Shoe Repair’s owner, Joseph Haddad, relies on Lowertown office workers, hotel guests and passersby for his livelihood. “It’s very slow right now,” he says. “Since reopening, I’ve had only about 30% of the business from before the lockdown, and I don’t know whether I can survive if things don’t go back to the way they were.”
Haddad worries that government employees, who constitute a big percentage of his trade, will continue working from home rather than returning to nearby offices, and that there will fewer tourists. “I’m in a trial period right now,” he says. “I’m not ordering new supplies, just working with what I have to see how things develop.”
Next door, at M. Good Custom Tailor, owner Kelly Fontil went in to his closed shop a day or so each week to service the Ottawa Police, one of the several large organizations with which he has contracts. “But there wasn’t enough business to keep my regular six employees on,” he recalls, “and we’ll have to see how things develop in the months ahead.”
One thing’s for certain: the daily Changing of the Guard ceremony on Parliament Hill has been cancelled this season, so Kelly won’t be taking care of the regiments that perform it. And that means he won’t hire help for the summer months, when his staff usually increases to 16 and he does about half of his annual business.
At 50 ByWard Market Square, on the other hand, Saslove’s Meat Market was able to keep key employees on at full salary, even though the doors were closed to walk-in traffic. In addition to curbside pickups, owner John Diener turned to home delivery and also offered other food merchants an opportunity to participate. Ultimately, this collaborative venture included ByWard Fruit Market, the House of Cheese, Lapointe Fish Market and The French Baker.
Explains Diener: “If someone ordered meat from us and also wanted the other products, those shops put together their parts of the order and brought them to us for merger with the meat order. Then everything went out as one delivery with one bill.”
Despite this success, Diener is concerned about the future. “Things are very uncertain for us right now,” he admits. He’s expecting pressure to open for walk-in traffic again, but he’ll have to limit customers to only one or two at a time. He also foresees ongoing demand for curbside pickups. “The logistics of operating both ways will be difficult,” he says.
Like so many Lowertown merchants, Diener appreciates the support received from neighbourhood customers, but he worries that the COVID crisis is renewing talk about closing Market streets to vehicular traffic. “That will spell the end of retail food here,” he says. “People will not walk for blocks with their food purchases. This was proven during the Inspiration Village fiasco in 2017, where lots of long- time customers stopped coming to the Market because of lack of parking. We need shoppers from throughout the Ottawa-Gatineau region who need to access the Market by car.”
Opportunities
While the lockdown created problems for businesses across the board, there were also breaks for some. For example, Bruno Mesta, owner of Mobile Surgeons at 203 Dalhousie, closed his doors when the pandemic struck. But that allowed him to be on hand when his son was born soon after, and then stay home to enjoy the expanded family. Fortunately, when Bruno reopened on May 13, lots of work came in from the many shops around town that contract out their repairs of smartphones, tablets and game consoles to him. There’s also been a pickup in walk-in traffic for these services as well as the accessories that he sells.
At The French Baker and Benny’s Bistro on Murray Street, the lockdown brought about a beneficial change that may become permanent: sale of frozen food. “I’ve been a chef for 25 years and I’ve never done takeout ever,” says executive chef Scott Adams. “I always thought my product wasn’t represented properly when it gets to someone’s house an hour or two later.”
But the lockdown inspired Adams to start selling frozen bistro cooking for curbside pickup, along with fresh bakery items. The initiative has been quite successful. “We don’t have to stand in front of the stove for 14 hours in hopes we’re going to sell a couple of hundred dollars of orders,” he says. “It’s been pretty effective.”
Although the pandemic struck not long after Kaz Kitchen and Grocery started up in February at 207 Gigues Avenue, owner Amin Kazemiahari feels that, “In retrospect, it was a good time to begin because COVID-19 encouraged local shopping and I was open.”
A professional chef who operated restaurants in the past, Amin is converting Lauzon Meats and Groceries into an emporium selling prepared food along with groceries and fresh meat. He’s optimistic that business will continue to pick up as restrictions are relaxed, his advertising begins and new signs are up. “I’ll limit the number of customers inside to five or six, but traffic hasn’t reached that point yet,” he says.” Amin wear a mask and has hung a sneeze guard at the meat counter.
Many businesses had their rent deferred or reduced by generous landlords, some of whom did so in anticipation of federal support that was promised in mid-April. It kicked in on May 25 as the Canadian Commercial Rent Assistance program for landlords who reduced their eligible tenants’ rent by at least 75% during April, May and June. This will help, of course, but what Lowertown’s business community will look like next year is a mystery