Charles City restaurants fear unknown, hope for the best

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

There were no gutter balls in Jim Hunn’s game on Tuesday afternoon at Comet Bowl.

The longtime Charles City resident was all smiles doing what he loves to do twice a week at his favorite bowling alley.

“It’s cheap entertainment – we socialize a little and stuff,” said Hunn, bowling a few frames with his wife and several friends. “Usually when we come out here to bowl we have lunch here, too. It’s just a social thing.”

Their weekly routine may be broken for the near future as ever-increasing restrictions sweep the nation in an effort to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“It’s in your mind – everything that’s going on,” said Hunn, a 1968 graduate of Charles City High School who moved to California in 1978 with his family, then retired in 2010 and moved back to his hometown.

Gov. Kim Reynolds issued an emergency proclamation Tuesday that all restaurants and bars close for two weeks. Patrons will only be able to receive food from eating establishments through carryout, drive-thru or delivery.

The disaster directive also orders no gatherings of more than 10 people in social, community, spiritual, religious, recreational, leisure and sporting events.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for many business owners.

Comet Bowl co-owner Mark Barry, who along with his sister, Peggy Sweet, has owned the bowling alley in Charles City since 2008, had big plans on Tuesday.

It was St. Patrick’s Day, but you wouldn’t have guessed it. Whether it was the lack of green in patron’s wardrobes or just the mood in general, the feeling was definitely one of unease from Barry’s perspective.

“I’ve been stressed before but I don’t remember being this stressed for two to three days in a row. It’s the unknown,” he said. “When I know stuff, I’m not stressed about it. I deal with it. But this is something I don’t know anything about. I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring and the questions that people ask me.”

He said he didn’t have bowling league Tuesday night.

“I planned this 50 and better party today. I was hoping to have 30, 40, 50 people here drinking green beer. I have two kegs of green beer – with no pub crawl this weekend,” he said.

Barry said 90 percent of his food sales are sit-down orders eaten in the establishment. He offered take-out service for his customers up until 7 Tuesday evening.

“It’s all new. It’s all new to all of us,” said Barry. “If this was something that’s happened before and we understood it and we worked through it back then, … but it’s so new that nobody knows how to react to it. The fear of doing something wrong is part of it — the fear of missing opportunities to still stay in business.”

The traditional Irish staple of corned beef and cabbage he was selling had to be boxed up and picked up to-go. He doesn’t know if he wants to start a delivery service.

“I don’t know, maybe. It’s kind of a case-by-case circumstance,” Barry said. “We’re going to stay with the carryout thing for a while.”

Barry said nine leagues compete at his lanes and that includes around 200 bowlers. Whether or not they continue their league is up to them, he said.

“Can our 40-person bowling league still bowl? That’s what these guys have to figure out, too,” said Barry. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight and tomorrow’s going to be different than today.”

Barry said his venue hosts the leagues, but the rules and regulations are administered by each league president.

“If this league wants to bowl, can I tell them yes you can? I don’t know that. I assume so. But if they want to place an order of cheese balls and they want to have a beer, now we’re a bar and restaurant again, so we can’t do that. So do you want to bowl and not have a beer and be able to order food? Let’s just not,” said Barry.

He said cutting back on his staff’s hours is a possibility.

“A typical Tuesday night we have nine people working,” said Barry. We’re not going to need nine people tonight.”

Just down the street on South Grand from Comet Bowl, Dave Holschlag has decided to take a different approach with Dave’s Restaurant.

Holschlag said he will shutter the doors to the eatery, which also caters. That means no delivery or carryout orders will be processed.

“We don’t have a drive-up window. We could have stayed open and done to-go items. I just didn’t think it was going to be cost-effective to be open for just to-go’s only,” he said. “Not only that, they’re recommending that people stay home. That’s our decision at this time. Down the road we may change our mind and decide to open up for to-go’s. At this point we just don’t know because it’s uncharted territory.”

Holschlag is hoping to be able to reopen his doors soon.

“Thankfully, we’ve been in business for just short of 29 years,” he said. “Our business has been blessed greatly with great customers, great employees for a long time. Our restaurant is solid. I have every intention of reopening after they lift the ban.”

Holschlag said he is encouraging his employees to file for unemployment. He said he is satisfied with how the state addressed unemployment before the ban took effect, not charging businesses whose employees claim unemployment because of the emergency orders and not raising their unemployment tax.

“I’m telling all of my employees, apply for your unemployment,” he said. “Get your money so you stay stable financially while we’re closed.”

Holschlag and his staff were taking preventive measures against the novel coronavirus well before the bad news business owners received on St. Patrick’s Day.

“We bleached the entryway doors and bathroom doors twice a day,” he said. “We currently and always have used a very top-notch sanitizer on the tables between every customer.”

Barry and Holschlag both said they’ll get through this tough time, but it’s other friends or acquaintances in the food and customer-service industry that they’re concerned about.

“When I talk to my food vendors year-round, many times they tell me there’s a lot of restaurants that they call on that are hanging on by a thread,” said Holschlag. “I feel so bad for them, because this will end them.”

Barry said, “We are established enough that we know we can survive. There’s already restaurants and bars teetering on the edge and you take all of their income and profit for two to three to four weeks — that closed sign may never come out of their window.”