DES MOINES, Iowa — It's been a challenging year for business owners, especially where they've had to modify their business, to survive in the the age of COVID-19.
Joe Tripp, owner of the award winning restaurant Harbinger, said to keep his doors open he had to change the restaurant's concept.
Harbinger transformed from a fine dining restaurant to a fast casual take-out restaurant, called Basic Bird.
"Basic Bird opened up, it's a really simple single concept type of restaurant where we do one thing and we do one thing well, and we fry chicken," Tripp said.
Tripp said the decision to change directions to survive was easy.
But, he's shocked the Korean style fried chicken restaurant is a success.
"Basic Bird has really grown," Tripp said. "It's actually become it's own business. We have t-shirts, graphic imaging and we're working on signage."
Tripp mentioned that after the pandemic is over he hopes to keep Basic Bird in operation, but at a new location.
He also hopes to bring back the fine-dining aspect of Harbinger.
Also seeing a growth in business is Nan's Nummies.
Owner Nancy Earll said at the beginning of the pandemic she lost $35,000 having to shut down for weeks, but is now seeing an increase in sales.
She attributed the recent increase to her loyal customers and the sweet treats she sells.
"It's comfort food, and at times like this people turn to food for comfort." Earll said.
However, other food places are not seeing as much success.
General manager, Tracy Vannoni, of the 40-year-old Spaghetti Works said the restaurant has been struggling.
She noted that in-person dining was down and to help sales, the restaurant staff had been pushing online orders for carryout.
"Twenty percent, maybe, of our income is carryout," Vannoni said.
She also added that with sales being low, 20 percent of basically nothing, does not help.
Vannoni said the restaurant staff had high hopes Thanksgiving week would give them a boost in sales, but that did not occur.
So, the inevitable happened.
"We just started laying people off last week, we have really tried to keep everybody employed," Vannoni said. "And it's awful."
The general manager added they are fighting and hopeful the restaurant will make it through this hard time.
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