Hoping bar business springs back this summer

WITTENBERG — Memorial Day weekend can be hit or miss, according to Xena’s Village Inn owner Amy White.

“For a holiday weekend the turnout was very good,” said White, “They’re very unpredictable — it’s usually all or nothing.”

In a couple of weeks White will be celebrating 20 years of bar ownership and if there is one thing she has learned to count on, is to never count on anything.

White had not planned on opening earlier than the May 26 end date for the Safer at Home order, but when the order was knocked down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she got on the phone and placed inventory orders with her vendors so that she could be open for the holiday weekend.

What a difference a couple of months can make.

“When the order came on March 17 to shut down non-essential businesses there were cops waiting at the door at 5 p.m. to make sure I was in compliance,” said White.

Then, in the past couple of weeks, she heard bars were opening because Shawano County Sheriff Adam Bieber wasn’t going to enforce it any longer.

For White, the time being closed was awful from a financial point of view. The mortgage and insurance bills still had to be paid. White was grateful for the emergency money she had been able save for this purpose, but now that it’s gone, she’s hoping for a quick recovery. She applied for several grants and loans, but found out she didn’t qualify for some and other programs ran out of funding.

Three years ago, White faced similar hard times with the reconstruction of Webb Street which took away parking spaces and sidewalks for the duration of the project.

“It hurt us terribly — very little money coming in,” said White.

With the total shut down this time, there was the opportunity to repaint the walls and redo the floor. There was also time for White to take her husband, Tom Smith, to doctor appointments.

“I was free to take him to his treatments — went every day for weeks, didn’t have to worry about the bar or rearranging schedules,” said White.

Smith had an incident that sent him to the ER twice in one day. Eventually, he was transported to the hospital in Marshfield for four days with no visitors. White spent eight hours waiting in the car during the ER visits and said it was a scary and very trying time with not being allowed to be there to consult with the doctors, due to the coronavirus. It’s the not knowing what’s going on that makes the waiting time unnerving said White.

Keeping a sense of humor is something that gets White and Smith through the scary times. Smith noted that his hospital room overlooked the cemetery and that made it a little hard to keep positive. He also had to take female hormone injections to help with the treatment. The side effect of hot flashes gave White something she could tease him about.

The biggest obstacle to getting ready for the opening was paying for inventory. Vendors get payment at the time of delivery so there is a lot riding on having a good first weekend said White.

“I’m the nervous one. I didn’t really want to open,” said White, knowing that social distancing in a bar is hard to get people to adhere to and you can’t drink with a mask on.

She also has a fear of everyone getting sick and worries about being accused of being the place where someone caught the coronavirus. Normal capacity is about 50 and even if she took out all the bar stools, everyone would still congregate closely.

White noted that, even before the pandemic, people would come into the bar while they were sick with colds or the flu; the need to socialize is very basic.

The bar business is very much dependent on people coming through the door said White. Her son, Justin White, handles most of the night shifts, and last summer he hired small bands in a effort to draw in more business.

According to White, there’s a lot of competition in the summer time with camping and festivals, but this year might be different. A lot of the events have been canceled and people may be staying closer to home which may result in a better summer that what they’ve had in years past. This would be the summer when it would be greatly appreciated according to White.

mnelson@newmedia-wi.com