Service industry taps into innovation

Bars and restaurants across the valley are serving up innovation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have to be as flexible as we can right now,” said Danette Sefcak, co-owner of Whitefish Handcrafted Spirits in Evergreen.

She and her husband Tom started distilling hand sanitizer in March when they saw a need that their small operation could fill. They partnered with J2 Business Solutions to supply sanitizer to nursing homes throughout the valley, and Danette started driving around the state to deliver bottles to assisted living facilities.

Since March, she estimated Whitefish Handcrafted Spirits has put out almost 1,000 gallons of sanitizing solution.

“It’s not a huge moneymaker,” she admitted. “We make a lot less on sanitizer than bottled spirits. But it has been enough money to help us get through all this.”

The Farmhouse Inn and Kitchen in Whitefish has adopted a similar strategy.

“We got really creative really fast,” said Brandi Peerman, who runs the café, bed-and-breakfast and family farm with her husband and some help from her four children.

Like the Sefcaks, the Peermans used their existing resources — in their case, producing bath products — to make hand sanitizer. They also created “farm boxes” to offload excess food from their farm. While hardly a profit-turning solution, they also gave some boxes out for free to hard-pressed families, who continue to receive their allotments on “Farm Box Fridays.”

But as creative as they are, these initiatives have hardly been enough to make up for lost revenue.

“It hit us super hard,” Peerman related. “Our volume just pretty much came to a screeching halt.”

The Farmhouse Inn and Kitchen laid off almost all of their 13 employees in March, then scrambled to try to fill their staff up again when they got the green light to reopen. They didn’t have the manpower or the food supply to stay open for dinner, and they had to refund three months’ worth of bed-and-breakfast bookings.

But Peerman hopes the worst is behind them. “We’re still trucking forward,” she said.

On the edge of the valley, business is apparently moving full-speed ahead. The Kila Pub is reportedly busier than ever before since reopening on May 4.

“We’re seeing record sales,” said Michael Hahn. “It’s the busiest it’s ever been.”

Hahn was as surprised as anyone by the Kila Pub’s sudden popularity. He said he had “no idea” why the remote watering hole took off after being completely closed for eight weeks.

He attributed the success to the pub’s local clientele, since the isolated bar doesn’t depend on tourist traffic like more centrally located establishments. The Kila Pub also made a few changes that seem to be going over well, like adding Sunday Brunch and switching to locally sourced beef. However, they have had to cut down on some of their offerings, like pizza, since propane has become too pricey to use in their pizza oven.

Overall, Hahn seemed pleased with the way things are headed at the Kila Pub. “As it stands right now, we’ve been faring pretty well,” he noted. “I think it’ all going to come back.”

Not everyone has been so lucky.

Sherry Toavs at Porteus BBQ said the outlook for their business is “fairly bleak.” While the restaurant is nearly busy enough to get by, the food truck is taking a big hit from the cancellation of most concessions and catering events.

“We’re just trying to move forward one day at a time,” Toavs said.

They expanded into a sit-down restaurant last November with the express purpose of providing an everyday option to Bigfork diners, since the small, unincorporated town doesn’t have many establishments that are open seven days a week.

But that commitment comes at a price. “We’re running ragged,” said Toavs, who has started waiting tables herself since she lost more than half of her wait staff in the shutdown. The employees that have stayed are being overwhelmed, especially with time-consuming new guidelines for health and safety. Toavs said her daughter, for instance, has sometimes worked 13 days “straight in a row.”

Still, Toavs insisted “we want to stay open.” She didn’t know what the family business would come to if the restaurant can’t keep its doors open.

But staying open isn’t such a high priority for some restaurateurs. Backslope Brewing in Columbia Falls, for example, stayed closed for a few weeks after businesses got the okay to reopen.

“We took the time we needed,” said general manager and owner Carla Fisher.

Customers still aren’t allowed to come up to the bar, but Backslope added an outdoor patio during the shutdown to make up for the lost space.

The slow restart has created some challenges when it comes to finances and keeping all the customers happy. But Fisher stated the health and comfort of her 40-person staff outweighs these concerns.

“We want to make sure they [employees] feel like they can work in a kitchen and survive,” she said.

These efforts could also help Backslope avoid the fate of some other popular spots in the valley. The Great Northern Bar and Grille in Whitefish and Moose’s Saloon in Kalispell both closed their doors for two weeks after employees tested positive for COVID-19.

Fisher saw the spring closure as a tradeoff for staying open during the height of the tourist season in July and August. “We need that to make it through,” she pointed out.

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