'Just holding it together': Small businesses look back as pandemic hits 2-year mark

In a ByWard Market dining room built for nearlya hundred people, Harikrishnan Radhwatched his staff serve a single table.

At lunchtime Saturday two years and a day since the World Health Organization declaredthe start of the COVID-19pandemic Radh, the co-owner of Indian restaurant Kochin Kitchen, said hehas to rebuild his business from the ground up.

"Now, we are like in an opening stage," Radh said. "We've started building and building and building. That's [what] we did when we opened in 2015."

Several small businesses in Ottawa told CBC News thattwo full years in apandemichave significantly reshaped the way they do things.

In that period, Ottawa restaurants were closed a total of 323 days, nearly one dayclosed for each dayopen. The city spent a total of 164 days in full lockdown, during which time people weren'tallowed to seeany contacts outside their home.

Another 160 days were spent with a provincial vaccine passport in place, before it waslifted at the start of March.

These key numbers,said Ottawabusiness advocate Michael Wood, have changed the way smallbusinesses operate and likely foretell a "much more conservative approach to growth."

"We have seen people downsize ... We have seen people revert online," Wood said.

"If [businesses]go under, well,then people are going to lose their homes and their assets. So, you know, this only exacerbated the need to change."

'Starting from zero'

As a buffet-style eatery, The Green Door Restaurant in Old Ottawa East was subject tomore public health restrictions than those that offeredtable service.

That meant even when the restaurant wasopen,it was far from operating at full capacity, said ownerRoss Farmer.

"There were many months ...where it was really just holding it together for the employees," Farmer said. "It was more just making what we can, to be able to employ the people that we can."

Although restaurants were closed for particularlylong stretches, other small businesses were also sidelined by the length of the full lockdowns.

"In a lot of ways, it feels like we're starting from zero,"said Aaron Kurtzer, manager of the downtown Comic Book Shoppe on Bank Street. "Insome cases, less than zero."

Online stores take off

Wood said moving forward, small businesses are likely to shiftfurther towardonline sales, embrace co-working spaces,and start planning for a broader range of future crises.

Sam Whittle, owner of downtown sex shop Venus Envy, said her online sales boomed early in the pandemic.

Although her online businesshassince droppedoff, Whittle said the web storeis here to stay even as their in-person workshops returned earlier this month.

"People were so overjoyed to be there," Whittle said. "There's an energy, there's a feedback you get from in-person events I find anyway you don't get online."