Cape's nightlife struggling through coronavirus pandemic

When Gov. Mike Parson issued the "Stay Home Missouri" order in April, requiring Missourians to avoid leaving their homes and shutting down non-essential businesses because of COVID-19, Cape Girardeau's nightlife suffered.

Now that the state has been reopened for more than seven months, Cape Girardeau's downtown bar owners are attempting to make the best of a bad situation.

"The last few weeks, business has seemed to pick up," said Jeff Mungle, co-owner of Coin-Op Cantina. "I know Thanksgiving business, that weekend's usually pretty good. It was OK.

"It was about what I expected it to be with all of this going on, but it wasn't anything like it's been in the past. There's several nights down here where around midnight, there's maybe 20 cars parked up and down Main Street. Usually Main Street's pretty full. It's definitely affected all of the bar industry."

Coin-Op has had to cut employee hours since it reopened in May, and 21 Taps initially had to let go two of its staff members.

A customer sits at the bar at Shakers on Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.Sarah Yenesel

"We did have to make some cuts in our staff, because with how slow we were when we first opened back up," 21 Taps owner Brittany Menz said. "Whenever we first opened, we had to cut back on some of our staff just because we weren't doing very well. We weren't able to keep them here."

CDC recommendations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends bars and restaurants encourage employees and customers to wear masks, increase their routine cleaning and disinfecting frequently-touched surfaces, maintain social distancing within the establishment and ensure ventilation systems are operating properly, among other things. These are, however, recommendations and not requirements, as the CDC's website states its recommendations are meant to "supplement -- not replace -- any state, local, territorial or tribal health and safety laws, rules and regulations with which businesses must comply."

Cleaning

Most bars downtown are taking steps to follow most of the CDC recommendations. Seemingly every bar downtown has significantly changed its cleaning routine.

A sign near the front door of the Coin-Op Cantina reminds customers of their mask policy.Sarah Yenesel

"When we did the first shutdown, for seven weeks we were shut down, I spent that whole time basically sanitizing from top to bottom in the bar," Shaker's owner Erik Harper said. "That way, I could confidently tell people I knew we were doing a lot to kind of clean the place and take care of it."

21 Taps has increased its cleaning frequency because of its self-serve beer wall.

"With our self-serve beer wall, that's one thing that, before we wouldn't really think about going over there every 30 minutes or every hour and wiping down the handles that everyone's touching," Menz said. "Now, that's a process we go through very, very often throughout the day."

Bar employees are also washing their hands more frequently than ever before to attempt to reduce the potential spread of the coronavirus.

"Our sinks are always full of water, and we're constantly washing our hands," said Cathy Thompson, owner of The Library. "Because, once you put a beer bottle up, we don't know. So we take the beer bottle and throw it away, and we wash our hands because we're touching what somebody else was touching."

Co-owner and bartender for the night Latt Browne cleans behind the bar Wednesday at Coin-Op Cantina.Sarah Yenesel

Ventilation

The Library benefits from having an outdoor section of the bar. Thompson said on many nights she will open the gate to the outside section and have an employee check identification there since many people are hesitant to go inside.

"Talking with everybody, the outside is golden because that's where they want everybody," Thompson said. In one of the bars, she said, tables are 6 feet apart, but outside, tables are spaced 10 and 12 feet apart, and there is more airflow. And, "we've got heaters on the deck, so people can still go out even in the winter.

"I feel lucky, because we have the outside. Little did I know five years ago when I bought Bel Air, that five years from then we'd have that advantage."

Social distancing

Customers are seen without masks at Blue Diamond Sports Bar on Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.Sarah Yenesel

Reducing capacity has helped many bars downtown comply with social-distancing guidelines.

Coin-Op has reduced its capacity to 50%, and has removed many of its arcade machines in order to allow customers to social distance. Harper said social distancing is one of the more difficult recommendations to follow.

"The biggest problem most of the bars are facing is the social-distancing aspect, because there's no possible way," Harper said. "I try to cap Shaker's at 50% to 60%. I've been doing that since COVID started. I'll just stop the door, and we won't let too many people come in.

"I don't know that the social distance is something that's being followed as well as the government officials probably would like. I know that I specifically won't allow more than 60% of my capacity."

Masks

Main Street on Wednesday night in Cape Girardeau.Sarah Yenesel

Despite CDC recommendations, few bars downtown are requiring their staff or customers to wear masks.

"From the very beginning, we've followed what the recommendations are," Harper said. "We have masks available for everybody. I have not made it mandatory, and I'm probably one of the few that hasn't, but I do make it very welcoming for anyone to wear masks, employees included."

Harper said he knows there are some potential customers who haven't gone to Shaker's because he doesn't require employees to wear masks, but he said he is understanding of their decision.

"There's no hard feelings," Harper said. "People go where they feel comfortable. ..."

"I haven't made it mandatory because I want to be clear on what the law is. I want to make sure that everybody understands, I cannot physically or, in any way, make someone wear a mask. Now, I could keep people from shopping or coming to my bar, but I'm not Walmart. I can't afford to lose customers. So there is a balance there."

Coin-Op Cantina is one of the few bars downtown requiring its employees and suggesting its customers wear masks.

"When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, you're an adult and you can make your own decision on whether or not you're wearing it. When it comes down to it," Mungle said, "we haven't kicked anybody out for not wearing a mask. I have suggested some people wear masks. I have refused to serve a couple people that were coughing and didn't want to wear a mask, just in case. Other than that everybody's been pretty good that comes in here."

Generational differences

Bar owners have noticed many of their older regular customers aren't coming out often, but younger customers don't seem to mind as much.

"The older customers ... that are in their upper 70s, they're not coming out yet," Thompson said. "They're still in their houses."

"There are age groups that are more hesitant to come out in public," Menz said. "The younger generation, they still want to hang out with their friends. So they're OK with coming out. The older crowd that we get, 40 to 60, they're not here as much as they used to be."

Hope for the future

Despite the seven-month struggle, and the likely months of struggle to follow, Menz seems optimistic about the near future.

"Things are getting a little bit better, in terms of people feeling more comfortable coming out again," Menz said. "It's still not easy being a bar owner dealing with all this COVID stuff, but things have started to pick up. Things are looking better, that's for sure."