It almost goes without saying: This is not how it was supposed to happen.
Josh Rainwater and his three business partners had just signed a lease on Columbia’s Main Street and were well underway on renovations to what once was a bodega, now becoming an arcade bar.
“Everything was looking great. We were pumped,” said Rainwater, co-owner of the fledgling Transmission Arcade with partners Cameron Powell, Joseph Thacker and Josh Bumgardner. “People were encouraging, and we were really, really proud of it.”
It was early 2020, and they were on track to open their doors in March.
That was before.
Before South Carolina detected its first cases of the novel coronavirus, which would spread quickly to infect more than 100,000 residents by mid-summer. Before restaurants, bars, stores, entertainment venues and offices across the state shut their doors for weeks straight. Before tens of thousands of South Carolinians lost their jobs.
Before a global health crisis snowballed into an economic crisis that spelled doom for many businesses, small and large, across the country.
Yet despite the downturn and the uncertain future, Columbia has seen a recent surge in new businesses opening — not reopening, but opening for the first time — amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“People didn’t just decide during the pandemic, ‘Hey, now’s a great time to open a business,’” said Sean Powers, owner of The Front Coffee and Tap in downtown Columbia, which opened several months behind schedule in mid-May. “It takes months and months and even years of planning to develop it.”
Powers had been making plans to open the coffee shop along the Columbia Canal for about a year; his target opening date was March 27. There was going to be a big celebration. There would be karaoke and jazz nights inside the shop. It would be a regular community hangout spot.
None of that could happen as planned, but, “to try to stop the bleeding from our bank account, the best bet (was) to go ahead and try to open,” Powers decided in May. “Of course, yeah, you feel a little bit of fear. It was scary. It’s a scary thing.”
On opening day, he was surprised to see a line of customers outside the door just after 7 a.m.
Business has started to pick up recently after what would be a normally-expected summer slump during popular vacation weeks. With college students returning to town now, Powers expects to get busier.
He’s adjusted his vision for The Front, from a lively indoor social space to a facilitator for outdoor community gatherings, such as weekly jazz nights and weekend yoga classes on the large plaza overlooking the Canal.
“When things don’t go the way you expect, I guess you just have to change your expectations,” Powers said.
‘A LOT OF MONEY ON THE TABLE’
Expectations changed for Transmission Arcade, too.
Opening to the public as planned was out of the question, but there were still bills to pay. “We have a ton of money on the table. What the heck?” Rainwater said.
Transmission pivoted its business plan temporarily: It would rent out its arcade game machines for people to play in their homes. It worked; every game was rented. But income was still limited.
So it made another pivot, opening the kitchen for takeout orders, fortunate to be able to ride the already-strong reputation of Smokey Loggins catering.
The business has been fortunate, too, to work with compassionate financial investors who’ve been understanding of the current economic situation, Rainwater said.
Still, there was a need to raise income and an eagerness to get rolling with the business.
So Transmission made one more pivot, opening the Main Street arcade for private party reservations starting in June. Reservations have been keeping the business afloat, and customers’ response has been “encouraging,” Rainwater said, with a number of people coming in saying Transmission has been their first entertainment outing since the beginning of the pandemic.
“The private-party system has, in a way, been an extended soft-opening,” Rainwater said. “We’ve had even more chances to work out kinks so that when we are (fully) open, it’s less being thrown to the wolves and a little more knowledge and experience.”
GREEN LIGHTS AND OPEN DOORS
A number of businesses have opened recently in the Columbia area after months of pre-pandemic planning — there’s Kairos Mediterranean restaurant on Devine Street; LICK Ice Cream shop on Clemson Road; Bang Back Pinball Lounge in Five Points; Shortcake Bakery and Tea Room in the Vista; and, as of last Friday, REI Co-op at the BullStreet development.
But some are planning their openings even now, knowing the uncertainty they’ll be stepping into as the pandemic stretches on.
“Who would open something when everything else is shut down?” laughed Kristi Gibbs, who plans to, yes, open a new business in Forest Acres later this year.
Gibbs and her longtime friend and business partner, Kim McMurry, have been planning for the past year to open a Midlands location of Kudzu Bakery and Market, a popular staple along the South Carolina coast.
As the pandemic unfolded and the women kept working through their business plan, “We just kept praying, ‘Lord, put an obstacle in our way if this is not supposed to happen,’” Gibbs said. “We just got nothing but green lights, so we just took it as a sign to keep going.”
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