Community spirit unites Washington businesses at difficult time
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Lisa Aprea, left, and Nancy Ogburn, owners of Chicco Baccello, are seen in this November photo.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Melissa Mega, left, of Ivy Green, and Alisa Fava-Fasnacht, of Marketplace at Emerald Valley, are pictured September.
Observer-Reporter
In this 2018 photo, Bob Von Scio, left, and Jared White appear at Heritage Craft Butchers, in Marianna.
Sarah Collier grew up in Baltimore, an hour’s drive – Beltway cooperating – from Washington, D.C. Her career eventually drew her north by northwest, to another Washington – home of the Whiskey Rebellion.
She has worked in the Greater Pittsburgh area for the past dozen years, primarily in Washington. As Main Street manager of the Washington Business District Authority, Collier is enamored of how owners are taking care of private businesses in the city, especially by working together, and especially now during a global catastrophe.
“It gets me a little emotional to see businesses that are going through a difficult time, yet are selling one another’s products, promoting one another’s business,” she said. “The resilience of our downtown has been so impressive. This is homage to Rosie the Riveter.”
The city’s business district, along Main Street and beyond, has ramped up in recent years. Dining spots, chic boutiques and shops, two distilleries, a brewery and other businesses have joined established establishments, like Union Grill and Main Street Brew House, to create a more vibrant retail atmosphere. A vast majority of the businesses are independently owned, requiring merchants to press hard to succeed in their personal endeavors.
Yet, even before COVID-19 barged into Western Pennsylvania a month ago, so many of these entrepreneurs were pressing hard for their peers as well. Last fall, for example, Alisa Fava-Fasnacht and Melissa Mega, owners of Marketplace at Emerald Valley and Ivy Green floral shop, respectively, organized “Harvest on Main,” featuring foods from more than a dozen businesses, mostly from the city. Fava-Fasnacht also was a linchpin in cobbling together a downtown breakfast crawl six weeks later, on Small Business Saturday, that included more than a half-dozen enterprises.
That spirit has helped three owners interviewed for this article to survive financially during the closure or partial-closures of their businesses.
“Through a lot of bad stuff come some shining beacons of light,” said Fava-Fasnacht, whose restaurant/specialty food store on South Main is 100 feet from Ivy Green. “You find out the character of a community when you go through something like this, and we’re seeing the character of this community.”
And that spirit, according to Mega, has been a loyal companion to city businesses for a while. “I’ve been here for 18 years and when I first came in, some people in the business district were helpful to me. I appreciated it.
“There is a good group of people, some longtime businesses on the street that give it stability. When a new business opens, you want it to succeed and keep going.”
Her shop is closed, at a time when there would have been demand for Easter flowers – and could well be shuttered for Mother’s Day a month from now. Floral was not declared a life-sustaining business under Gov. Tom Wolf’s edict to shutter numerous businesses statewide, a key initiative in attempting to mitigate the coronavirus spread. Yet Mega perseveres, earning some money through no-contact delivery of flowers she had in stock. There is no pickup at Ivy Green.
Marketplace customers are allowed entrance in small numbers to purchase a variety of cheeses, wines and other food items. Heritage Craft Butchers has products there, and distributes its “Essentials” bags of meats in the pavilion parking lot nearby on a weekly basis. Its West Bethlehem Township shop is open for business as well.
Chicco Baccello is perking along, even though coffee sales “are way down,” said Nancy Ogburn, who owns the South Main deli/restaurant/coffee shop with her brother, Jim Martin, and Lisa Aprea.
“So far so good,” Ogburn said. “We’re hanging in there.”
Chicco offers takeout and delivery, and a generous dose of creativity. She said the shop sold Thanksgiving rolls and Christmas cookies on, appropriately, April Fools Day – “and we were slammed.” Easter trays, with a 2 1/2-pound ham, are available along with Easter bread, and trays of cookies accompanied by daffodils from Ivy Green.
The course of the virus, of course, is uncertain, rendering any timetable for a return to “normal” operations useless. Ogburn said, however, if that happens within six weeks, “we should be OK. We have to keep being creative.”
Both distilleries in town, Liberty Pole Spirits and Red Pump Spirits, likewise have reached out by producing and distributing hand sanitizer for essential local businesses.
Collier said she is gratified by what she has observed from so many city businesses, plus Washington PA Food, an online group that promotes buying local.
“The COVID-19 situation has really solidified that community mentality,” she said.