Central Coast Comeback: Businesses adjust to ‘new normal’

(KION) The coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses of all kinds to adapt. From eating out, to going to the dentist, nearly every industry has had to make changes.

Within just a matter of days, in March, COVID-19 turned Central Coast businesses upside down.

“It went very quickly from two or three days of 50% occupancy to: we’re closed now,” Kurt Grasing, owner of Grasings restaurant said.

Restaurants like Grasings in Carmel-By-the-Sea  are facing much of the
brunt of the economic downfall.

“When you shrink your volume to 25%, your costs don’t go down to 25%,” the restaurant owner said.

Grasing was forced to furlough 32 employees at his restaurant. That is the same story elsewhere, too.

In Capitola, multiple shops in the village say they’ve lost about 90% of their customers since the shelter-in-place began.

“It would be really sad for us to have to close after 25 years,” Super Silver manager Avalon Gonzalez said.

And many fields of work are facing the challenges still ahead. As much pre-screening dental practices will do, that doesn't solve the problem of asymptomatic carriers coming into the office.

“We know that COVID-19 is airborne, and in dentistry just about every procedure we do creates some form of aerosol,” Dr. Steve Ikemiya, with the Monterey Peninsula Dental Group said.

However, amidst the barrage of bad news, adaptations across industries are
developing faster than ever.

“We’ve come across some interesting revelations, and because of that we’ve
made some exciting changes in our practice,” Ikemiya said.

The Monterey Peninsula Dental Group is installing an all new filtration
system in their building, which will drive COVID-free  air through each
room every five minutes.

“Capturing viruses and then eliminating them gives us air that is about as
clean as safe as it can be,” Ikemiya said.

R&S Heating and Sheet Metal is the company installing the new ventilation
system for the dental office, and demand in their business is only growing.

“I think we’re going to start selling some sort of air scrubber or air
purifier with every system," R&S heating owner Richard Russo said. "We sold them as an extra before. I think it’s going to be a part of the system [now].”

So as parts of Russo’s business lost some traction during the pandemic, now
this new aspect is thriving. The ventilation and air scrubbers will
likely become more common in restaurants and homes too.

Grasings, usually a gourmet sit down restaurant, is using their vast
experience in catering to design a new more take out friendly business model.

Grasings dining room will have less tables when they re-open in expanded stage two, and all restaurants looking to re-open in person dining will have to check off sixty items. That includes pre-rolled utensils in napkins, closed off bar area and disposable menus.

“We made people feel comfortable before. We’ll make people feel comfortable again. It's the nature of what we do,” Grasing said.

With adjustments around the business world, there's also been support.

After we spoke with the Santa Cruz dry cleaners, Classic Vapors, as they worried about falling short on pay roll last month, a customer sent this message to the owner after seeing our story:

“our next check will be for $1000 to "prepay" our account for a
few months. Maybe it will, in some small way, help you meet the payroll.”