Page 24 - BusinessWest February 3, 2021
P. 24

  Hampshire County
 Uncertainty on the Menu
Restaurants, a Hampshire County Lifeblood, Continue to Adjust
TBy Joseph Bednar
he weekend before March 17, Fitzwilly’s was gear- ing up for a great St. Patrick’s Day. That’s the day the Northampton St. Patrick’s Assoc. gathers for
its annual breakfast, and then about 200 of them march on down to Fitzwilly’s and spend most of the
day there.
“We have Irish bands, and we were sitting on 20 kegs of Guin-
ness beer and a couple cases of Jameson’s Irish whiskey for a great big party — and it got pulled right out from under us,” owner Fred Gohr said.
Remember March 16? That’s the day restaurants — and most other businesses in the Commonwealth — were forced to shut down, on just two days notice, by order of Gov. Charlie Baker.
“It was awful,” Gohr went on. “We had a staff of about 75 peo- ple, and I had to tell them all, ‘we’re closed, and you guys have to go on unemployment for a while, and we’ll see what happens.’”
What happened, all across Hampshire County’s robust dining scene, has been a series of starts and stops, hope and despair, and especially two themes that kept coming up as BusinessWest sat with area proprietors: uncertainty, but also evolution.
“We were closed completely for a month or so, then we opened and started doing a little bit of curbside,” Gohr said. “And, hon- estly, when that’s all you’re doing — at least for us — it’s not very profitable.”
But takeout service, never a major factor in the business, has since morphed into a significant part of the model, accounting for about 25% of sales. Other restaurants have relied even more on pick-up service, because they don’t have the interior space or
Fred Gohr says Fitzwilly’s shifted gears in a few ways last year, from expanded takeout service to outdoor dining under a large tent.
  24 FEBRUARY 3, 2021
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY
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