“I’m preparing for a future where we will have dine-in service again”: Why one optimistic café owner is tackling a mid-Omicron reno
“Before the pandemic, we were dealing with the challenges of running five cafés and wine bars across the city. We had big plans for all of them, but with the onslaught of Covid, we had to focus on our pivots. We began importing wine, and fast-tracked a coffee roasting company we were already working on, Subtext Coffee Roasters. We developed and expanded bottle shops at all of our locations, which now take up so much room that we’ve had to wholly reconfigure some of our locations.
“But money aside—as everyone knows by now, whether from Zoom fatigue or online schooling—the online space has its challenges. In person, you can focus on your product and service. With e-commerce, there’s a much more implicit pay-to-play component: competing in the digital space means going up against global companies, many of which have used vast sums of money on SEO and digital marketing.
“The fatigue is real. January and February are already slow months—the difference now is the layer of existential threat. Compounding on last year’s lockdowns, these are testing moments. Not to mention an additional layer of uncertainty as to what new shutdown or drastic drop in demand is around the corner.