Bloomington Chocolate Company made it through COVID-19 thanks to a few unique reasons, leaving them more prepared than most for the new realities the pandemic brought.
They sold specialty goods catering to those staying home, like high-quality olive oil for home cooking, and chocolates that isolated family and friends could send each other, owner Linda Armes said.
So they were able to ride it out well enough, at least to where she could open another location by the Buskirk-Chumley Theater about three weeks ago.
It’s a big change from their other location near College Mall — which has plenty of parking and wide-open spaces — to move downtown. And it’s still a seismic shift in how Armes conducts business from before the pandemic, through the price rises and up until now. Consumer attitudes are still changing.
“During Covid, people figured out they can live without a lot of things,” she said.
From September 2020 to April 2021, around one third of American small businesses closed, according to the World Economic Forum. Many in Bloomington shuttered their doors due to decreased business and the shutdown economy.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bloomington metropolitan area’s unemployment rate ballooned up to more than 10% in April 2020. From just over 4% the month before, roughly 10,000 fewer people had jobs.
Five years on, the future is still up in the air for many local businesses.
Korea Restaurant on Fourth Street, like many other restaurants, had to move to a takeout-only model during the pandemic. Yong Lee, the restaurant’s manager, said business substantially lowered during that time and has been struggling in its recovery since. Still, at lunchtime Tuesday, the restaurant’s interior was mostly full.
Dave Harstad, a broker at Colliers and an IU adjunct lecturer, said COVID-19’s effects cascaded into many outcomes for businesses across the country and in Bloomington on a case-by-case basis.
Office real estate is especially in turmoil as workers return back to in-person work, part- or full-time. He said the pandemic changed the way people think about offices and commuting — meaning much of the effects remain to be seen.
Particularly, in Bloomington, there’s not a tremendous amount of demand for offices, Harstad said, meaning there’s not much incentive to build more of them. And eclectic attitudes in the community can make plans more uncertain.
“People in Bloomington can’t decide whether they want to live in a big city or a small town,” Harstad said.
He also sees restaurants struggling with regulation and code. One of the challenges for businesses in peripheral Bloomington in this regard, Harstad said, is that regulation compliance costs stay the same between prime real estate and less desirable land.
The restaurant sector, he said, has faced some of the pandemic’s greatest challenges. Some are doing well, and others are still struggling. Much of what Harstad sees is contention regarding keeping well-maintained staffing and dealing with more expensive goods to sell.
Armes, the Bloomington Chocolate Company owner, said she dealt with this exact struggle as she tried to get her feet off the ground in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Still, she’s doing well enough to open another storefront near the center of Bloomington, where she’s mostly relying on passersby and workers downtown — exactly the presences the pandemic decimated.
