When Covid-19 hit the U.S. in March, revenue at Alyssa Manny’s yoga studio fell 60 percent to 70 percent. And it wasn’t just her. Nearly every business on Tennyson Street, in a gentrifying neighborhood about 15 minutes from downtown Denver, was hit hard by the pandemic.
First to go was Biju’s Little Curry Shop, a popular dining spot featuring dishes that Biju Thomas grew up with in south India, like samosa chaat, dosas and rotis. He moved to the U.S. in 1980 and settled in north Denver. February had been his best month since he opened the restaurant in 2016. But by March, he was done.
“We lost $80,000 in bookings that first week,” Thomas said recently. “We had weddings and events booked into March, April, May. We did about $400,000 in catering and events over the course of a year. Fifteen hundred meals a day out of the kitchen. There’s no coming back from that.”
Thomas’ experience is echoed by small-business owners across the country who have fallen on hard times since the start of the pandemic, which has killed over 260,000 people in the U.S. and strangled the economy. At least 100,000 small businesses nationwide have closed permanently, according to a Yelp analysis released in September. Many others are barely hanging on.
Small businesses make up 44 percent of U.S. economic activity, according to a 2019 report from the Small Business Administration.Restaurants, which before the pandemic employed 15 million people, have been especially hard hit. The wreckage is evident in empty storefronts, takeout-only signs and GoFundMe pitches to help merchants stay afloat.
“No one was prepared for the reality of shutting down an entire economy,” said Manny, owner of Ohana Yoga + Barre and vice president of the local merchants’ association. “Business owners had to decide, do you want to take on debt and play the long game or get out?” Manny chose the former, taking on $200,000 in debt and turning her popular studio into a membership-only operation.
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