Last week marked major milestones and big news in the fight against COVID-19.
The 50 millionth coronavirus vaccine was distributed in the U.S. on Thursday, and the Food and Drug Administration reviewed and approved Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine on Saturday.
The company joins Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech in developing a safe and highly effective vaccine that prevents severe illness caused by COVID-19. Now, 4 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are on their way to states, and 220 million more vaccine doses will be distributed by Moderna and Pfizer throughout the country by the end of the month.
Coronavirus case numbers continue to decline locally, echoing the national trend. The last two weeks of February saw Berkshire County’s average positivity rate drop to 0.87 percent — the lowest it’s been in five months. More than 30,000 vaccine doses have been shipped to Berkshire County vaccination sites as of last Thursday and more vaccines were distributed in the Berkshires than in any other Massachusetts county to date.
Seemingly bolstered by his state’s promising trajectory, Gov. Charlie Baker announced on Thursday his plans to further loosen capacity restrictions on larger venues, performance spaces, and restaurants.
All this good news is resonating with Berkshire County business owners.
“Coming off this last week and a half, I’m riding the wave of euphoria that things might actually be getting back to normal,” said Shaun Muldowney, manager of The Marketplace Café in Pittsfield.
Like most restaurants in the state, the café has struggled to adapt to a year of changing safety protocols and capacity limitations.
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” Muldowney said. The café, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary last October, is a go-to lunch spot for downtown workers, so the company took a huge hit from non-essential business closures and stay-at-home advisories. But as difficult as it was, they never closed. “That’s when our business model changed to online and remote ordering, delivery, and take-out,” he said.
Despite renovating the space for limited indoor dining, which was permitted in June, and expanding outdoor seating in cooperation with the Beacon Cinema next door, summer sales were down — with Muldowney citing an absence of seasonal theater staff in town. Business picked up in the fall, but Pittsfield officials ordered indoor dining closed again in November. By that time, the café’s outdoor seating was packed away, and the business took another hit.
As much as Marketplace relies on repeat customers, its location in the heart of Pittsfield’s cultural district is crucial to its success. This may be why Muldowney feels so optimistic.
“I’m anticipating a slamming summer now that vaccines are available and people are more comfortable going out,” he said. Muldowney can test this theory with the reopening of the cinema, which resumed showing films on Friday. “Fingers crossed that will bring more business here,” he said.
Like Muldowney, Ken Gietz depends on summer tourists and travelers to do well.
Gietz is the co-owner of Where’d You Get That!?, a unique gift store that has been a staple of Williamstown’s business community for nearly 30 years. He, too, has loyal local customers, but the foot traffic on Spring Street is important because of what he sells and where he sells it.
With 7,000 items in stock and 60 percent of the inventory changing annually, the store is built for in-person browsing. “When you come in, you can see that a lot of things are impulse purchases,” he explained. A bustling downtown means that more people stop in and look through the shelves, leading to more purchases. Without tourism in Williamstown, business isn’t sustainable.
Thanks to a snowy winter and open museums, Gietz is seeing tourists in the shop as well as a boost in sales this season.
“I feel pretty upbeat on the direction of things,” he said. “People are taking the precautions they need to stay safe, and I think everybody will feel a little safer in terms of traveling this summer. I expect to come out of this reasonably well.”
Safety is the number one concern for John Polizzi, vice president of the clothing manufacturer Tasha Polizzi and flagship store T.P. Saddleblanket in Great Barrington. The pandemic forced the store to close from late March to August last year, straining the company’s retail operations.
“That’s a long period to sit vacant,” he said. “We wanted to reopen but we felt a lot of trepidation around doing that safely, so setting business hours has been a moving target. It’s something we have meetings about every week.”
Polizzi is following the declining COVID-19 case trend and is cautiously hopeful, crediting Berkshire County’s coordinated vaccination process with high inoculation rates, but he is taking a wait-and-see approach to planning. “It’s too early to tell whether our hours will expand,” he said. “We love being open later, especially in the summer, but we won’t unless it’s safe to do so.”
Sales have waxed and waned all year and Polizzi is not seeing increased customer confidence—yet. “People are still keeping their heads down and we can’t blame them for that,” he said. “But I think we are on the other side of this.”
Mohamed Zabian, on the other hand, has a different experience with customer behavior.
“Thanksgiving was the breaking point for this area,” said the owner of Zabian’s Fine Jewelers in downtown Lee. “Customers’ attitudes changed. They started buying jewelry because they wanted to make themselves feel good and get back to normalcy. It’s been great ever since.”
While he doesn’t necessarily attribute the uptick in sales to vaccinations, which began in December with healthcare workers, first responders, and long-term care facility residents, Zabian thinks the increased accessibility of the vaccine will only propel residents to local businesses.
“I’m feeling very positive and excited about the spring and summer,” he said. “I think every business in the Berkshires is going to be inundated with customers.”
Zabian is overflowing with relentless and infectious optimism. Even at the height of the pandemic, he was positive. “I never wanted to hear how much our business was down,” he said. “Never. All I wanted to hear was that we were staying alive.”
The jewelry store will remain open five days a week and is he is prepared to take whatever business he can. “We are stocking our store like the virus hasn’t even happened,” he said. “I really feel in my heart that good things are coming.”
