While the holiday that often brings people out, especially to bars, had not historically been a significant day of business for his bar, it was a noticeable decision Newman made to close days before March 17. There was warm weather that week and many restaurants and bars were looking forward to seeing more customers than if there were colder winter conditions.
My Brother’s Bar was one of the first to start adjusting to the restrictions of the COVID-19 outbreak in March of 2020 and continued to make changes so it could remain open and keep customers safe. A year later, the owner sees a path beyond the pandemic and some of the trends that came out of coronavirus restrictions are likely to become part of their permanent business model.
“What a crazy memory. It’s just so crazy to think back, we thought that, you know, this was all going to be fairly temporary,” said Danny Newman, the owner of the bar remembering what was on the mind of the community just before Saint Patrick’s Day a year ago.
“It’s always been a big day for sure and what a time for a bar to be closing.”
My Brother’s Bar never advertised takeout before, but it quickly became a necessary way to keep their employees busy and stay open.
“It’s crazy just all around, I think we have figured out a lot of things, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty,” he told CBS4 on Tuesday. “We definitely have taken a hit obviously on all fronts but, yeah, the liquor sales are what are even more dramatically down.”
The City and County of Denver would later require businesses to take the steps My Brother’s Bar did, allowing takeout and delivery orders, but stopping in-person dining for several weeks. Selling liquor for to-go orders was a helpful way to improve sales, but Newman says he will not likely see the revenue they were making before the pandemic again until 2022.
“I definitely think there’s a solid light at the end of the tunnel, I think for a lot of 2020 not knowing what the future held was terrifying. That’s was scary,” he said.
While he thought the restrictions would only last a few weeks, he has yet to return to indoor dining 12 months later. He says the building is more than 150 years old and ventilation is an issue. So, he expanded his patio into the parking lot and added “igloos” last September to serve more guests outside.
He hopes that as more of the population gets vaccinated and the containment of the virus improves, customers could be back inside this fall.
“This has been exciting for us, it’s been an interesting experiment,” Newman said. “We thought we could never survive without a parking lot, you know, without parking for our customers.”
He says takeout food and drink orders are likely here to stay for his business and they will look at options to make the parking lot more of a permanent setup for seating well after the pandemic. Newman is also eager for “last call” getting pushed back beyond 2 a.m. when it is safe to keep people at the bar so late.
“It’s just exciting and as cool as these new things are, we really can’t wait to open inside again too,” he said.
