It’s been a difficult year for the restaurant and hospitality industry.
But as he contemplates the survival of his own business amid COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, Jeff Swanson knows there are plenty of others who are struggling.
So on Thanksgiving Day, the owner of Swan’s Café in Litchfield threw out the traditional model for business success and served turkey dinners with all the fixings to anyone who asked, for a price customer determined on their own.
“With all this COVID (stuff), It’s just giving back to the community, I guess,” Swanson said Nov. 25, amid the planning for the next day’s big dinner. “People seem to appreciate it.”
With COVID-19 case rates rising throughout the state, Gov. Tim Walz in a televised address Nov. 18 announced an executive order that closed for a four-week “pause” all restaurants and bars, except for take-out and delivery, beginning Nov. 21. The order also limited pick-up customers to no more than five at any one time.
Walz issued a similar — though more restrictive — executive order in March this year, then slowly loosened restrictions to allow customers to return to indoor dining and drinking in limited capacity. But as numbers spiked in early and mid-November, the decision was made to dial back again.
“This continues to be a devastating time for the hospitality industry that provides 1 in 10 jobs in Minnesota, but now sees half of its businesses facing permanent closure in the coming months,” Hospitality Minnesota, a lodging, restaurant, resort and campground association, said statement following the executive order. “While we appreciate that the governor is not shutting down restaurants, bars and events as some other states are doing, we are concerned about the economic and jobs impact on these businesses.”
The hospitality industry wasn’t the only area affected, of course. The order also paused high school sports for four weeks — forcing football and volleyball teams to move up scheduled games to get them in before the midnight Nov. 21 order went into effect.
In addition, Walz’s order banned social gatherings for anyone not living in the same household. That included urging people not to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday, leaving many to contemplate changing their family traditions.
A letter signed by more than 1,000 physicians and released Nov. 18 read, in part: “The growth is so rapid that health care systems are pushed to the brink. Daily, there is a scramble to find ICU beds and staff, non-emergent surgeries are delayed, emergency rooms are overwhelmed, and the transfer of patients in need of life-saving care between hospitals is increasingly challenging. This is true for COVID-19 patients and patients with other conditions.”
In an interview with the Independent Review, Dr. Deb Peterson, chief medical officer at Meeker Memorial Hospital and Clinics in Litchfield, said, ‘We all have to make sacrifices. If we all choose wisely, we would find ways to see family virtually or visit in some other fashion.”
Those words of caution, were part of Swanson’s motivation for the free-well offering Thanksgiving dinner. The majority of Swan’s Café’s customers are in the 50-plus age range, he said, the age group that would likely be without visiting family on the holiday. The pandemic’s effect on the local economy also has likely hit those people, he reasoned.
“There’s a lot of people that, you know, can’t afford …” Swanson said, his voice trailing off. “This town has a lot of elderly people in it, and their kids aren’t coming home. What better way to have a Thanksgiving dinner, in that case?”
So Swanson and a small-but-dedicated staff ramped up to serve hundreds a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The meal would include turkey or ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, dinner roll and a pumpkin bar for dessert.
The Thanksgiving dinner was a repeat of the restaurant's free-will dinners for Mother's Day and Easter earlier this year, during the first state shutdown. Allowing customers to set their own price means Swan’s Café was likely to “break even” on the day, Swanson said, but he also felt it was doing an important community service while also reinforcing loyalty among his most frequent customers.
By the end of the day Nov. 25, through social media and word-of-mouth promotion, Swan’s had received reservations for nearly 200 takeout meals and by the time they began serving at 11 a.m. Thanksgiving Day, there were about 250 reservations.
“We always over-prepare,” Swanson said when asked what it was like preparing for Thanksgiving dinner without a count for the guest list. “We’re preparing for about 300 people, but … When it would get to a certain point, say 400 or 450, then we’d have to stop (taking orders).”
Stopping taking orders. It’s the one thing Swanson does not want to think about. But after 25 years of owning and operating Swan’s Café, he is worried about its long-term survival because of the financial strain the pandemic and associated restrictions have placed on it.
“It’s been …. I’ve been doing this since 1981, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Swanson said. “We hope to be back (after the shutdown “pause”). I don’t know if we’ll make it another 25. We are part of the community. We want to keep going.”
