Small businesses are navigating through the virus
Rick Shrum / Observer-Reporter
Don DeVore, owner of Monongahela’s DeVore Hardware, in a 2013 file photo, has been working long hours to keep his business going during the pandemic.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Joe Mendola, middle, and Matt and Jennifer Cario, owners of Carlton Diner, in a photo from December 2019, are filling lunch and dinner orders for takeout during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
In this file photo from 2018, Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s is shown on East High Street in Waynesburg.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect how long Carlton Diner had been open before closing the dining room.
Don DeVore admitted, upfront, that he is “tired.” But it’s not virus-related.
“We’re not sick,” said the owner of DeVore Hardware Co., in the heart of Monongahela’s business district.
Overwork is the culprit. DeVore is the fifth-generation leader of a store that sold its first piece of hardware in 1903. And lately, he feels as if he’s worked there the entire 117 years.
He and an associate hired three weeks ago are the only ones on the job. About a half-dozen part-timers are employed there, usually three to four per shift to assist DeVore, but the others have declined to work in tight quarters during the pandemic.
These are not optimum conditions, of course, but the owner said somewhat cheerily: “We’re making it.”
The coronavirus outbreak has created challenges to all businesses, big and small, nationwide. One of the biggest challenges confronting small businesses that are deemed essential and still operating is being innovative enough to keep things going, to satisfy customers. A sampling of local merchants indicates that a number of them are doing just that.
DeVore is persevering despite personal concerns. He developed health issues a few years ago, which prompted his daughter-in-law – a local anesthesiologist – to admonish him. She knows physicians from a regional health network who were assisting in New York City, a COVID-19 hot spot, and they texted her about the dire situation there.
“She asked whether the store is worth it,” DeVore said. “I say I owe it to the community and the area to remain open.”
So it is. Six months after visiting DeVore Hardware during Mon City’s 250th birthday celebration, Gov. Tom Wolf included hardware stores among life-sustaining businesses that could remain open during the pandemic. Don DeVore is taking strict cautionary measures, though. It’s one customer inside at a time, with the employee saying “Next” to a single patron outside. Other customers usually wait in their vehicles in the adjacent lot.
For the most part, people have been very patient,” DeVore said. “Some people have let others go ahead.”
To get some rest, he has curtailed hours and plans to close the store a few more days.
DeVore is upbeat and senses growing unity among people, similar to what occurred following the terrorist attacks of 2001.
“This could be 911 on steroids,” he said.
About 15 miles to the southwest, the owners of Carlton Diner have had to shift strategies again. Joe Mendola and spouses Jennifer and Matt Cario shut down the longtime Somerset Township eatery in late December, and soon afterward began the relocation from just off Interstate 70 in Somerset Township to Main Street in Bentleyville. They were operating there less than two months when the coronavirus struck Western Pennsylvania, closing down the dining room.
“We have takeout and delivery,” Jennifer said. But against Carlton tradition, breakfast is limited to one day: prepaid preorders for pickup from 8 to 10 a.m. on Saturdays.
The diner is filling lunch and dinner orders from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Luncheon selections, for now, are made from a scaled-down menu. Family-pack dinners, feeding four to six, are available in the evening
“We have all sorts of fish on Fridays and Reubens have been very popular,” Jennifer said.
She and Mendola are currently running the place, with Mendola serving as the main cook. Jennifer Cario said they employ 22, and that all have qualified for unemployment benefits. She is gratified by that, and optimistic about what is ahead.
“Everyone will be a little hurt, but we’ll come out of this.”
Kent and Pam Marisa own and are operating three businesses out of Waynesburg, two of which still operating. And while their floral/gift shop, Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s, is shut down, they have not laid off any of the 23 total employees. Some are cutting material at home for the production of face masks.
“We are willing to take some pain, so they don’t feel pain,” Kent said.
The couple also owns Direct Results, a full-service marketing company that offers screen printing, embroidery, sign shop, printing, office furniture and supplies. Direct Results started a Stand Strong campaign for Greene County and for West Virginia, selling T-shirts, hoodies, decals and mugs to help benefit small businesses and health-care employees.
The Marisas likewise are in charge of GreeneScene, a direct-mail magazine sent to 25,000 households in or near Greene County.
“We try to do what we can,” Pam Marisa said.