ATLANTA (CN) — In the week since Georgia Governor Brian Kemp lifted the state’s shelter-in-place order and allowed businesses to reopen, Atlanta business owners have found themselves in uncharted territory as they try to stay afloat and prioritize their customers’ health in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since reopening on May 1, the phones at Melrose & McQueen, an upscale hair salon located in Atlanta’s Inman Park neighborhood, have been ringing off the hook.
“We’ve been slammed every day. Business has not slowed down whatsoever for us,” Brooke Ford, a manager at the salon, said Tuesday.
Hair salons were given the green light to reopen in the Peach State on April 24, along with bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, and gyms. Movie theaters and restaurants were allowed to open on April 27.
Like many other Atlanta businesses, Melrose & McQueen has implemented a new set of hygiene rules to protect clients and staff.
Ford said all clients are asked to bring a face mask to their appointment and must have their temperature taken before entering the salon. The business has also stopped accepting cash and added “touchless everything,” including touchless hand sanitizer dispensers.
But the most dramatic change has been to staffing.
“We have minimized the amount of people in the building by at least 75%,” Ford said, explaining that only three or four stylists will work on a day when normally 10 or 15 would be scheduled.
Although some clients have been uneasy about coming in for appointments – Ford said a few people declined appointments over health concerns or simply refused to answer the salon’s calls – others have flocked to Melrose & McQueen while their regular salon remains closed.
Not everyone has chosen to reopen.
More than 50 restaurateurs, who together operate over 120 restaurants in Savannah and the greater Atlanta area, announced their refusal to open for dine-in service in a full-page advertisement in the April 28 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We agree that it’s in the best interest of our employees, our guests, our community, and our industry to keep our dining room closed at this time,” the ad said.
Restaurant dining rooms are allowed to operate as long as they follow a set of 39 guidelines laid out by state officials, which includes requirements that all employees wear masks and admit only 10 customers per 500 square feet of space.
Cinemas in Atlanta also remain closed. AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark have not yet announced plans to reopen in Georgia.
But some Atlanta small business owners don’t feel they have the option to keep their doors shut.
In Sandy Springs, a suburb of Atlanta, tattoo artist Charlie Cu said his decision to reopen his private tattoo studio on May 1 was a stressful but financially necessary one.
“We’re a small business and there’s no funding to pay for our mortgage or help us out financially. We were staying in place for a month and a half and things were getting a little tight. It put us behind. It was very frustrating not being able to work,” Cu said.
Now that he’s back open for business, Cu said he’s taking extra precautions to keep clients safe.
“We’re in close proximity but both me and my clients wear masks, I have an air purifier, I keep the doors open and I’m wiping the station down… I’m already a neat freak as it is but the precautions that I take are pretty crazy,” he said. “All my clients say they feel safer coming to my shop than going to a grocery store because of the precautions I take.”