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Greensboro brewery struggling but not tapping out during pandemic

Little Brother Brewery was almost always packed on the weekends. Live music could be heard blasting from the windows as you strolled by, but that's not the case now.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Stephen Monahan opened Little Brother Brewery for a little more than two years. The downtown Greensboro restaurant and brewery has quickly become a popular place to hang out and listen to music. 

“We were basically at capacity most days and certainly on the weekend before all this started,” Monahan said.

Restrictions put in place by the Governor to help combat the virus has limited business to takeout or delivery orders. Monahan said sales are off almost 75-percent. The past six weeks have been hard on many small business owners. 

“It’s really tough right now,” Monahan said.

In fact, if you walk around the downtown area, it feels in many ways like a ghost town. There is still a little traffic and some people walking the streets, but most businesses are either closed or are open just a few hours a day.

A few restaurants and bars have closed for good since the restrictions went into place. Monahan said his place is doing okay and it’s in large part to the loyal following that continues to get takeout orders. The question moving forward is: when will the doors be open to guests again? 

“We want to reopen when it’s 100-percent safe,” Monahan said.

At Camelback Brewery, the chairs have been stacked on top of each other for the past six weeks. Owner Mike Stec still comes to the brewery almost every day but he’s pretty much the only one. Most of the staff has been let go as the business has plummeted during the pandemic. 

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“We are a small brewpub that has a limited food menu and are not really geared up to offer a large takeout menu that might appeal to outside sales,” Stec said.

The brewery relies almost exclusively on people coming in and sitting down to taste the beers. The taproom atmosphere is part of the business model that has served Stec well, until now. 

“We don’t really distribute beer so what we produce is almost 100-percent strictly for our taproom,” Stec said.

Almost the second the government announced programs to benefit small business owners, Stec was online filling out forms to get some relief. He could be getting some paycheck protection funding later this week. At this point, any money coming in will be a big help. Stec has also reached out to his loan company and it appears it is willing to help. 

“If we can just hit the pause button on some of these liabilities and loan payments until things start up again, then hit play again,” Stec said.

Both owners feel confident they will be able to survive this shutdown as long as the plans in place now don’t dramatically change. Monahan said he owes a lot of gratitude to the people of Greensboro who continue to support local businesses during this time.

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