Big business, and bigger banners for beer, burgers and brats — and maybe even brandy — beckon on the beat. And that beat, as per the previous headline, is one I had as an editor on duty at the good ol’ Hudson Star-Observer; the mistake was caught and fixed after a laugh, but what is happening to businesses trying to find ways to stay “open” these days is no laughing matter. And while businesses in Minnesota tended to run for cover, their counterparts in Wisconsin were far more creative in refusing to knuckle under and keeping the lights on. Here is a snapshot of their stories, and how they’ve been promoting themselves with the signs you’ve seen before even considering an entry, (with much more to come on this topic on this web site, as it continues to unfold):
When the virus was first at bat, there were a virtual gaggle of ways to get the message out that things would not be the same for a while for conducting commerce. And even now, the Agave Kitchen and Bullpen Cantina chipped in with more than cow chips for fodder, having their bull’s head propped up at the top of orange cones that were front and center at either end of their dedicated parking area on Second Street, and then bent around the corner for greater ease of takeout. Then the veritable heads of the bull on top of the cone, filling the hole on top, were Taken Down For A Time, possibly at the bequest of the Zoning Police, only to be Back Up In Black come August. Some of them right away — not just on the wall or on the curb, but even in the highway right-of-way — were signs saying “open” and were in big letters, capital letters, colored letters and even multicolored letters, and a range of sizes, shapes and wired-down paper versus cardboard, plastic placards with a pair of sides, or Light Up Everybody neon, to boot. Some off the wall said temporarily closed, some indefinitely and everywhere between. One village bar took the time to make a massive cleaning and another smack-dab downtown took it to another step of complete remodeling, a process lasting many days before there was any consideration of takeout or delivery. Indeed some places had a menu that did not match well with bringing it to you, and if there was little space near the front doors, because of a concrete partition or handicapped-only spaces, things got even dicier than pepper pieces on a pizza. The champ of such creative vagueness was a place that hawked their own brewed beer “on tap,” brought to you in anything than a frosty mug.
Soon there were as many as three parking spaces in a line that were closed for anything but takeout, and places found ways to keep up the taking of orders without coaxing people too far into their joint. Others posted small signs that asked people to wait to be seated — when only two or three steps inside the vestibule, but still being spacious enough to let them sit at a table there. And if people at that venue, Key’s Cafe, felt more comfortable with the meal being brought out and even carside, they would comply in much like the old A&W. (Again, no firm word on whether frosty mugs are a part of that picture).