Local retail shops, hair salons open to eager customers

The highly anticipated reopening of some local businesses began Monday after weeks of closures. Most retail shops, hair salons and the other businesses that were allowed to reopen welcomed the opportunity to get back to business.

“It’s nice to be back in business,” said Trek Stephens, the owner of The Toggery in Whitefish.

In the first few days since reopening, Stephens admitted business has been a bit slower than it normally would be. “It’s not as strong as it was before, obviously,” he said. But he nonetheless reported many shoppers have been eager to get back out to shops like The Toggery.

“The locals are definitely giving us a lot of support,” Stephens said. “100% of our sales [right now] are loyalty customers. That shows you that it’s all locals.”

Out-of-state visitors are still prohibited from traveling into Montana, and the city of Whitefish’s ban on accepting non-essential lodging reservations will stay in place until at least May 10. Even though spring is generally a slow season for tourism, The Toggery and other local businesses recognize the shortage of tourist shoppers could have a big impact on business.

To try to combat the dip in sales and move inventory that has been sitting in the store for a while, The Toggery is selling all regularly priced items at 25% off. The store also launched an online ordering site in an effort to keep revenue flowing during the store closure, but Stephens admitted the site “didn’t generate a lot in sales.”

Now, he’s hoping the spacious store and rigorous cleaning measures will allow customers to feel comfortable enough to return to in-person shopping. Stephens noted they are working with a slightly smaller staff these days, but they are still keeping up with frequent sanitizing of door handles, dressing rooms and credit card machines.

Stephens also owns the Kalispell Toggery store, where staff believes the layout is also spread out enough to enable social distancing. The biggest difference there is the loft space, where shoppers are limited to five people at a time and there are arrows on the floor directing traffic to flow in one direction.

Stephens believes his stores’ spacious layouts make social distancing “pretty easy to do” there.

SOCIAL DISTANCING isn’t quite so easy to implement at some of the other businesses that have recently reopened. At hair salons such as the Clip Joint in Whitefish, the nature of the work requires close contact between technicians and clients, who have inundated the salon for much-needed hair treatments after weeks without a cut.

Owner Brittney Smith said a lot of her clients have told her they were looking forward to the salon reopening more than any other business.

In their first few days, the Clip Joint has reportedly been “really busy,” which is creating revenue for the salon and some changes in safety protocols.

Smith had to rethink the normal operations at the salon, which is usually a walk-in only establishment. Now, clients can show up ahead of time and write their names on a white board, then go wait for their turn outside the store. Previously, Smith didn’t permit clients to leave while they were waiting for their appointments, but she’s now trying to keep a maximum of eight people inside the salon at a time.

They have also rearranged the stations to be six feet apart and continued to clean them with a potent disinfectant. Clients and technicians can also wear masks and gloves if they would like to, although Smith said so far most people are “not really wearing them.”

In Bigfork, The Parlor Salon and Spa was one of the first businesses to reopen on Monday. Owner Josie Boucher adjusted the salon’s hours to open up an hour earlier than normal on Monday morning in order to handle the influx of customers arriving for their long-awaited haircuts.

She said her top priority in reopening is supporting these loyal customers, rather than jump-starting the salon’s revenue stream. Boucher said The Parlor has fortunately been sustained by gift card purchases and product package sales during the closure.

“We tried to keep engaging with our clients,” by checking in over the phone and using social media to stay connected, Boucher added.

But once word got out that the salon would be back in business, Boucher said there was a “huge response.” As soon as Bullock announced plans for the first phase of reopening, Boucher received 32 voicemail messages from clients hoping to get into the salon right away.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” she confessed.

Given this demand, Boucher said she and her crew have made a point of doing their best to prioritize the clients who have been “most affected” by the business closures. She pointed out her clients book their appointments months in advance, so plenty of regular customers have been unaffected by the shutdown. Some of these people have even called Boucher to offer their appointment slots to other clients who might need to be scheduled more urgently.

But even with the green light to reopen, Boucher was cognizant of the inherent risks of performing hair and nail treatments up close during a pandemic.

Since The Parlor is a small salon, Boucher isn’t overly concerned about the area becoming too crowded. She pointed out The Parlor only employs three technicians at once, so it would be unlikely for them to go over the limit of 10 people in a space at a time.

To be extra cautious, they are asking clients to wait for service in their cars, and they have rearranged their stations to be six feet apart. The technicians are also wearing face masks and encouraging their visitors to do the same.

AUSTIN LAWRENCE, the co-owner of Lawrence INK Design & Tattoo studio in Kalispell, also opened Monday and said masks are available if clients want to use them. Clients are asked to come in without their friends or family for appointments. Lawrence has also started calling clients before their appointments to check if they’re experiencing any symptoms of COVID-19.

But he said it’s mostly business as usual at the small tattoo parlor, where he is the only artist and his wife does nail art. The response since reopening has been pretty enthusiastic, said Lawrence, who is booked out for the next two months for ink appointments.

He’s grateful for this reaction, he said, because his family was only kept afloat during the closure thanks to their stimulus checks and fortuitously selling their camper before the pandemic hit. They also applied for unemployment benefits, but they have yet to receive this support.

Mechelle Thomson, the owner of nearby tattoo parlor Unique Addictions, said “I don’t know an independent contractor yet who has actually gotten assistance.”

She and the rest of her staff are therefore grateful to be in the very first wave of reopened businesses.

“It was hard to be shut down,” she said. “Much longer and things might’ve started to get really, really difficult.”

She recognizes many people are still cautious about going out in public and using services like a tattoo parlor, where social distancing is inherently tricky. But she insisted Unique Addictions—where technicians are wearing masks for all appointments—has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to cleanliness. She said Unique Addictions “is not as busy as it normally would be this time of year, but it’s picking back up.”

A RECENT forecast from the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research predicts it could be two years before business really starts to pick back up. Job losses and personal incomes are both being harder-hit than they were during the 2008 recession, and Northwest Montana is experiencing the most job losses of any region in the state.

Every Montana industry except for federal civilian employment is experiencing job losses.

The Bureau estimates the Montana economy will see a loss of more than 50,000 jobs over the 2020 calendar year. It expects employment might be close to returning to the trend from before the pandemic by 2022.

Bureau Director Patrick Barkey said, “it’s a pretty tough story,” but they can’t yet be sure how phased reopening—or the potential of additional business closures—might play into these predictions.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.