JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Phase two of reopening in Jacksonville could begin as early as next week, according to Mayor Lenny Curry. He expressed a desire to begin phase two on Monday, which has offered a lot of hope to small businesses still struggling to stay afloat.
Executive Chef and Co-owner of Sneakers Sports Grill in Jacksonville Beach Tommy McCoy says the community has shown them an outpouring of support for the last two months and it's thanks to their orders in bulk that they are still operating.
This isn't the first time they've gone through difficult circumstances; just last September they were working to reopen their doors after Hurricane Dorian.
McCoy is hopeful that once football season rolls around they will be back to normal.
"We missed March Madness, TPC, the NBA, hockey, everything, so if we were to miss football it would be devastating," McCoy said.
As a sports grill, the football season is their "bread and butter" in a sense. But more than that, he says it's a season where total strangers feel like family as they root for their teams and he feels like they would offer hope to people.
This past week and a half of being able to reopen at 25% capacity in the first phase of reopening has been a major boost for them. Phase two will allow them to reopen at 75%.
"Every step is a step in the right direction," he said.
Since early March he and his co-owner have foregone their pay in order to keep their staff paid.
"We had to make sure we could pay everybody else and take care of ourselves later," he said. "We feel like we’ve made it through this because we’ve done it the right way, whatever the mayor told us to do we did."
Ginger's Place is a bar located on the other side of Third Street at the beach. As a smaller, family-owned business they've had a more difficult time amid COVID-19, losing the majority of their profits.
Phase two can't come soon enough for owner Candy Breidert.
"It’s coming just in the nick of time because I could have made it just through this next week for payroll and then after that, I don't know," she said.
Breidert says Ginger’s Place is named after her mother. Her parents opened up the bar 44 years ago.
"I'm the second generation owning this, I hope it goes on two the third and fourth, I don’t want it to end on my watch."
She said phase one of reopening actually hurt her business because people no longer bought packages of alcohol from her bar since the restaurants were open. Additionally, since she is a bar and doesn't have a restaurant license, she could sell mixed drinks to-go like other restaurants, she could only sell by the bottle or can.
Phase two gives her hope. It would allow her bar to open at 50% capacity. She hopes, when that happens, customers will come out in support so they can get back on their feet.