VALDOSTA — Tracy Dickens: “It hasn’t hurt our business at all.”

Michele Everson: “We had to close.”

Two business owners; two very different COVID-19 impacts.

On April 2, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp issued a shelter-in-place order to deal with a pandemic. Among its requirements: only “essential” businesses — such as supermarkets, pharmacies and key manufacturers — could remain open, in an effort to cut down mass gatherings where the COVID-19 coronavirus could spread.

This followed many local business freezes that had been imposed in a patchwork fashion by cities and counties across Georgia.

The impact of Georgia’s first-ever statewide business lockout is difficult to gauge, since such a thing has never happened before. But different locally owned firms have seen different outcomes from the spreading illness.

 

No escape

Epic Escape Rooms, on North Ashley Street in Valdosta, had five employees before April 2, said Michele Everson, co-owner.

Then came the pandemic.

“We had to close” in Mid-March, she said. 

The company, which started three and a half years ago, offers recreation in the form of living mysteries to be solved: teams of players seek clues and solve puzzles to “escape” from themed rooms.

Epic Escape Rooms started returning to life May 1 after Kemp began easing restrictions on companies, but business is far from ideal, Everson said.

“Business has been very slow,” she said. “We just have not been running at the capacity we need.”

Everson said the business has only been able to rehire one of its former employees, “although we want to hire all of them back.”

 

Toy Story

Titletown Toys in the Valdosta Mall has been on a rollercoaster ride.

Founded in July 2019, it was forced to close due to the pandemic only nine months later.

“We reopened Friday before last,” said Rick Greer, owner, “when the first eight or 10 (mall) stores reopened.”

Their shop, the first toy store in the city since the Toys ‘R’ Us chain sank in 2018, had two employees before the shutdown; now, it only has one aside from his family, he said.

His wife, Anita, had worked with the Lowndes County School System, but after Kemp shuttered all public schools early due to COVID-19, she has spent more time working in the toy store, she said.

The Greers kept business going during the downtime by working the Internet.

“We didn’t particularly push store inventory through Facebook,” Rick said.

Mother’s Day gifts and Easter baskets were the big online sellers, he said.

“The Easter baskets sold well,” Anita said. “We had a good following on Facebook.”

Foot traffic has been “limited” since the store reopened but people who have entered Titltetown Toys have spent well, she said.

The store had to cancel a number of inventory orders from a New York toy fair as a result of the closure, but stock is being re-ordered and the shop hopes to hold some sort of July 1 event marking a year in business, Rick said.

During the downtime, the mall made rent adjustments on a store-by-store basis, he said.

Melissa and Doug-brand educational materials have been selling well since the reopening, Rick said.

“The community has really helped us through this; we appreciate it,” he said.

Outside Titletown Toys, there are signs of change in the rest of the mall. Only 39 of its 70 stores have reopened, according to the mall’s website, and arrows laid down in the food court direct the foot traffic flow.

 

‘No more than 10 customers’

Corbett’s Country Corner sits along a rural road in Echols County, surrounded mainly by trees and a farm business across the road.

In business for 11 years, the local eatery has been owned for the last two by Tracy Dickens, selling breakfast and dinner plates to a clientele she describes as “almost all farm workers.”

The governor’s shelter-in-place order contained a clause forcing all restaurants to close their dine-in facilities. This didn’t slow Corbett’s down for a moment, she said.

“It hasn’t hurt our business at all,” Dickens said. “We went to take-out orders. Most of our customers only have about 10 minutes to eat anyway.”

That doesn’t mean the COVID-19 virus hasn’t had an impact. Signs reading “No more than 10 customers” are posted on the door and inside, and Dickens and her two employees are wearing masks now. Most of the time.

“We always wear them indoors,” she said, “but every so often we have to go outside and take the masks off for a moment, for a break. I don’t envy people who work in retail.”

The cafe is, in fact, known to Kemp: last year, he made a well-publicized stop at Corbett’s, where he signed legislation legalizing the manufacture of industrial hemp in Georgia.

 

Masked man

The impact of the pandemic on Wilkinson Inc. on Gil Harbin Industrial Boulevard may be unique.

“It’s had a dramatic effect on our business,” said Fred Wilkinson, owner. “Business has accelerated. We haven’t had any layoffs; in fact, we had to hire two people.”

Wilkinson Inc., which trades as Thomasville At Home, is in the business of producing luxury bedding, pillows and window hangings. The company, founded in 1969, no longer has a retail showroom.

“We do 99% of our sales through the Internet,” Wilkinson said.

When the governor began shutting down nonessential businesses, Wilkinson Inc. stayed open because it had begun producing an essential product — cloth masks — by the thousands.

“We manufactured a few thousand the first week,” Wilkinson said.

The two-layer cotton masks, which come in a variety of colors and styles, are not medical-grade surgical masks, he said, but are still recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow down the spread of COVID-19 in public settings, such as trips to the supermarket. Surgical masks and N-95 respirators are regarded by the CDC as “critical supplies” that should be reserved for health care workers.

The masks can be washed and reused, Wilkinson said.

In the manufacturing facility, the company has followed federal, state and local pandemic safety guidelines, he said.

“We’ve been very busy,” he said. “When you’ve got 25 employees in a 20,000-square-foot building, following those guidelines isn’t difficult.”

Masks can be ordered from the company online and shipped by mail. Local customers can use the website to arrange contactless pickup at the plant’s front door.

This year, Wilkinson Inc. is observing 50 years of textile manufacturing in Valdosta and Lowndes County, Wilkinson said.