SALT LAKE CITY — Since Utah’s economy began creeping back to life this month, the reasons to reopen or remain closed are as numerous as the business owners, and customers, making those decisions.
Officials who mapped out the state’s response to the pandemic anticipated the recovery phases would be uneven, as consumers and business owners make the ultimate call — not government.
“The government can say whatever it wants to say, but the government can’t come in and say, ‘You will open your restaurant on this day,’” Derek Miller, Salt Lake Chamber president and head of a task force steering Utah’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, told the Deseret News in mid-April. “That’s going to require innovation from the private sector, based on whatever rules or regulations are put into place.”
To better understand the thinking behind those individual decisions, the Deseret News spoke to several business owners whose economic engines have been either idled or running at top speed during the pandemic.
Two companies — a restaurant and a movie theater chain — shuttered by the pandemic are weighing more than just the financial benefits, but also the social costs, of their plans to reopen. Another business has been overwhelmed with orders for its survival kits and now hopes to leverage public awareness, and not just panic, to maintain some of that momentum. Then, a data analytics firm that helps hospitals enter the digital age finds itself poised to improve decision-making in health care now and in the post-pandemic era.
What’s an N95?
Companies suffering amid the economic fallout from COVID-19 far outnumber those struggling to keep up with a surge in business because they happen to have just the right product in a time of public need.
Park City-based Uncharted Supply Co. finds itself among those few. Interest in the 3½-year-old company’s specialized emergency preparedness gear has taken off in the face of both the global COVID-19 pandemic and the more localized reaction to a magnitude 5.7 earthquake.
Uncharted founder and CEO Christian Schauf said he was feeling happy with a busier-than-expected final quarter of 2019 and was navigating a hefty backlog of orders before the coronavirus made its way to the U.S.
Even as the first U.S. cases of COVID-19 were being reported, Uncharted’s online selection of 72-hour survival kits, first aid packs, respirator masks and portable power units wasn’t experiencing any particular rise in consumer interest.
Then the first U.S. shelter-in-place orders hit.
“When the lockdown conversations started to happen, things just took off,” Schauf said. “We were getting Black Friday-level, or 2x Black Friday-level business every day.”
While interest in emergency preparedness supplies in the early days of a pandemic isn’t surprising, Schauf said, media coverage of acute shortages in the U.S. and around the world created intense interest in items that have long been part of Uncharted’s survival kits.
“We were proponents of using appropriate and effective air masks long before this health crisis,” Schauf said. “We’ve been telling our customers for years that the right air mask makes sense.”
The N95 mask designation was likely little known to most Americans pre-COVID-19, but that certainly is no longer the case. It has became the company’s most sought-after item as the pandemic began to impact larger areas of the U.S.
“We just worked our butts off trying to source them,” Schauf said. “We were selling them at cost and limiting sales to 10 to prevent resellers from grabbing all the merchandise.
“Still, it was impossible to keep up with. We put 20,000 masks on the site and they sold out in six hours.”
Schauf said he expects order volumes to subside on the backside of COVID-19.
But he believes the pandemic has made fundamental changes to everyone’s worldview. He predicts interest in self-sufficiency, and the gear to go with it, will reach a new plateau, which should bode well for the future of his company.
Schauf said friends that had once been uncertain about his decision to use the entirety of his life savings to launch Uncharted have been circling back with mea culpas. He said the inspiration behind the company was creating a group of products that would “leave the world better off.”
“Most people know Darwin’s quote about the survival of the fittest but are a lot less familiar with all the work he did on the power of communities,” Schauf said. “Whether it’s taking down a wooly mammoth or resisting an invading army, we’re best when we work together.
“We make products that empower people and help them stay in a place of abundance. In unexpected or emergency situations, when individuals are good and their families are good, then they’re able to help their neighbors ... and this is how we survive and thrive together.”
‘Too soon for our industry’
Her four coffee houses/cafes have been shuttered along with the roastery. Her 64 employees have successfully navigated the unemployment benefits system. Through several small loans, she was able to pay her vendors and refund reservations for events at her largest venue.
More than seven weeks into swift closure of Publik, owner Missy Greis waits patiently for a coherent message from the government and public health officials that it’s safe for restaurants to reopen. Local and state guidelines have given a thumbs up to get back to business, but only under strict protocols that imply to Greis that a high risk remains for the virus to contaminate a restaurant and its employees and customers.
“That’s an indication that it’s too soon,” she says about reopening any of her places.
A line in Publik’s mission statement says, “Planet over profit,” which rules out the possibility of complying with county standards of single-use cutlery and dishes.
The name Publik means “community” and a scan of its website sends a clear message that their locations are not grab ‘n go outlets, but gathering places, where friends connect or students find a corner with a cup of coffee to spend a few hours cramming for a final. Their flagship location at 975 S. West Temple, also has 4,000 square feet of space for business meetings or receptions.
But the other three locales are too small to reduce the number of tables to maintain social distancing standards and cover her fixed costs. And much of her menu doesn’t lend itself to delivery or take out.
She regularly talks with industry peers and her furloughed employees about when and how to reopen and the general consensus is uncertainty. Greis said that the concern goes beyond safe interaction between the customers and employees, but among customers themselves fretting over others who may cough or sneeze or just get too close.
And then there’s the larger community that makes the restaurant business function. If she opens too soon, places a food order and a spike in COVID-19 infections forces another closure, she won’t have the revenue to pay her vendors for food that won’t be purchased.
“It’s complicated and that is why I really feel so strongly that it’s too soon for our industry,” says Greis.
But the 52-year-old Colorado native, who worked in the nonprofit sector and dabbled in other small businesses before opening Publik Coffee Roasters in 2014, is confident the right time will come to carefully fire up the roastery and then reopen one gathering place at a time.
Publik actually transitioned to a new normal in early March, when reports of the fast spreading coronavirus indicated its inevitable arrival in Salt Lake City. Greis says employees were wearing gloves and taking steps to make extra clean what was already clean. They asked customers how they felt about coming in and “three out of four would say, ‘We feel so safe here. We can see what you guys are doing that’s different. We’ll be back tomorrow.’ And it happened day after day.”
Despite that trust, Greis knows the environment at Publik will be different once she does reopen.
“I’m with a pretty affectionate group of employees, There’s a lot of hugging even with customers,” she says. “That’s going to change.”
The movie escape
Blake Andersen sounds oddly upbeat describing the past month and a half of empty auditoriums that would normally be filled with tens of thousands of moviegoers on a busy weekend.
Instead of bemoaning lost revenue, the president of Megaplex Theatres says the coronavirus outbreak that has forced an unprecedented closure of the cinema industry has been an opportunity to dismantle, deep clean and upgrade the regional chain’s multiscreen complexes.
Instead of fretting over losing touch with “guests” forced to stream films from their homes, his team sold curbside movie popcorn, candy and drinks. The sales also moved up implementation of a new Megaplex mobile app that guests use to order their snacks.
“Beyond belief” is how Andersen describes the response to the curbside sales of movie concessions at its 15 theaters in Utah and Nevada. Up to 50 cars can be seen lined up waiting to pick up their orders. Utah locations gave away free popcorn last week in exchange for donations to the Utah Food Bank.
He’s looking forward to a summer blockbuster season that he anticipates will extend into what is usually a slow fall season because of a late start.
But he injects caution into his characteristically optimistic outlook.
“Movies can be so relaxing and an escape. We want people to come back and feel that escape. I think people need that now,” he says. “But we’ve still got to provide a safe environment for that to happen.”
Andersen spends hours every day poring over feedback and other data gleaned from customers, employees, managers, government agencies and others to know when and how to reopen. His team hopes to strike a balance between old expectations of comfort and new standards of safety and sanitation.
“When we look at reopening, we’ll be very careful to make sure that we’re good stewards in our community to make sure that we’re not unnecessarily exposing people to the virus or taking risks to make more money,“ Andersen says, noting “stewardship” is among the Larry H. Miller Group values that guide his decision making.
When Megaplex Theatres open — some time in June — gloved employees will be wearing masks as they clean and wipe down auditoriums and restrooms between screenings. Moviegoers, who will be urged to order tickets and concessions through the Megaplex app before arriving and not to use cash for purchases in the theaters, will find hand sanitizer stations throughout and be offered towelettes to give their seat another wipe-down, if they want.
Unless health authorities order it, moviegoers won’t have to wear masks, Andersen says.
And don’t expect big crowds. Details are still being worked out, but each location will limit sales to 25% of seating to allow for social distancing. For the first few weeks, theaters will be open for just a few showings to allow employees to work out the new seating and cleaning procedures and respond to customer feedback.
“At the end of the day, it is the consumer’s choice, right?” he says. “I mean, we can do everything. But if you don’t have the trust of the guest, it matters not.”
Data will drive health care recovery
Getting the $3.5 trillion U.S. health care system back to normal operations post-COVID-19 is setting up to be an enormous undertaking. One Utah company has positioned itself long before the pandemic to play what it sees as a pivotal role in the transition.
HealthCatalyst is an 11-year-old company that emerged from former Intermountain Healthcare employees aiming to collect, digitize and analyze health care-related data to help hospitals and clinics find efficiencies, optimize patient outcomes and reduce mistakes.
CEO Dan Burton said the challenges created by the pandemic have only highlighted issues for health care providers that are behind the curve in eliminating paper-based record keeping and other outdated analytics methods with advanced data analysis.
“Pandemics like COVID-19 represent situations where technology can provide healthcare professions with much better decision support,” Burton said. “It’s not that technology should replace clinical decisions, it supports and enhances clinical decisions.”
HealthCatalyst has been assisting providers across the country in navigating acute care issues related to COVID-19, including managing capacity, planning for developing infection hotspots and establishing strategic plans for critically short supplies, like personal protective equipment and ventilators.
Now, Burton said his company has tools to help providers implement plans to bring regular services back online even as COVID-19 treatment and mitigation efforts continue.
“Recovery plans are as complex as the fight against the pandemic itself,” Burton said. “What are the relative clinical implications of reintroducing certain procedures, what are the costs, which procedures will help recover losses the most quickly without propagating the spread of the coronavirus?”
Burton said health care providers with the best access to information will form the most effective solutions to those questions and stage the quickest and most complete recoveries to regular patient care.
And, he said, the emergence of advanced tech tools brought on by COVID-19 restrictions will have long lasting repercussions.
“We’re seeing widespread adoption of telehealth,” Burton said. “I think many felt that was inevitable over time but the shift was greatly accelerated by the circumstances brought on by coronavirus.
“I think this reinforces the long term hypothesis that, in many use cases, telehealth is just as effective as an in-person visit.”
Burton said pandemic conditions have underscored that health care systems that are armed with robust data analysis capabilities have a huge advantage over those that don’t. And, regions and countries that have interconnected providers with robust digital assets will be much more resilient in the face of public health crises of any scale.
“There are risks inherent to having a health care digital patchwork as opposed to a robust, systemic digital infrastructure,” Burton said. “Think about the economic ramifications of using the blunt instrument of worldwide social distancing measures. Sometimes that’s the right choice but it may be the only choice if you don’t know a lot.”
“Our clients knew earlier on exactly who the most vulnerable subsegments were, mortality rates ... and had enough data to make confident policy decisions. I hope there is a broader recognition of that value.”