INDIANAPOLIS — Small businesses have been hit the hardest throughout the pandemic. The ones still open and serving customers have adapted to an ever-changing situation.
Kate Drury, owner of The Flying Cupcake, can attest to that. She tells WRTV, she's happy to be open after being closed for a month-and-a-half. However, reopening was tough to navigate the ever-changing and confusing guidelines
"At that time, we were required to wear masks, but other people weren't necessarily. A lot of people were anyway, but some people chose not to and they didn't have to at that time," Drury said.
Drury couldn't wait on the government to give out guidelines to best keep her employees, customers, and herself, so she came up with a plan. "We decided to do a setup that can keep them safe and us safe, as much as we can, by maximizing social distancing," Drury said.
The setup creates at least six feet of space between customers and employees, ten feet at the max. You stand behind a table to pick out your cupcakes and once you pay, they're slid to you in a container.
"I don't want them to be put at undue risk for just selling cupcakes. it's extremely important to me to keep them (her employees) as safe as I can," Drury said.
Dr. J.D. LaRock with the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship says what Drury has done is what all businesses should be doing: adapting. "We know that those mitigation efforts help limit community spread and thus help keep local governments keep businesses open," Dr. LaRock said.
Despite good news about vaccines, Dr. LaRock doesn't want businesses to see it as a return to normal just yet. "Until we have more widespread delivery of the vaccine, small business owners will have to search for additional solutions to help their cause," Dr. LaRock said.
He encourages small business owners to continue adapting and thinking of new ways to run their businesses as the pandemic rages on. Drury says that's what she's done: found solutions to a problem she never knew she'd face.
