LANCASTER, Pa. —
The economic impact of the COVID-19 shutdown, now in its third month, is beginning to show. Unable to pay expenses and with no money coming in, some businesses are going out of business.
Anita’s on Walnut, a café and bakery in Lancaster, shut its doors in March. On Friday, owner Anita Skrocki announced those doors will never reopen.
“I wanted to touch people’s lives,” Skrocki said. “I wanted our place to be a safe place.”
Anita’s on Walnut was an expansion of Skrocki’s small biscotti business, Anita’s Biscottis. Skrocki wrote an emotional farewell post on social media documenting the café and its workers since 2018.
“My heart is really hurt by closing down and I think it’s going to take a little bit of time,” she said.
A Facebook report surveying 86,000 small and medium business owners, managers or workers found a third did not expect to reopen.
Heart Cafe in Marietta joined the list of businesses permanently closing after serving breakfast and lunch to the community for two years.
“Just something that felt good,” said Jason Hampton, owner and executive chef. “When you came in, you felt welcome… That was the Heart Cafe.”
Some businesses were struggling even before the pandemic. Bald Hills Distillery in Dover cited multiple reasons for shutting down last week, including the pressures of the pandemic.
Heart Cafe, however, had two months’ cash reserve, nearly double the median of 16 days of cash reserve for small restaurants, according to a report by JP Morgan Chase Institute.
“This really pulled the rug up from underneath me,” Hampton said.
Several other Central Pennsylvania businesses have closed because of COVID-19, including Iron Fit Gym in Lititz, Papillon Salon in Lemoyne and Bobcat Creamery in Manchester.
Closing a business they built from scratch hurts, owners said, but closing doesn’t mean they failed.
“Losing a business is tough,” Hampton said. “Is it the end of the world? No.”
“I’m just this person who just tried this dream,” Skrocki said. “At first I’m like, it didn’t go the way I wanted. But now that I’ve seen all the comments from our farewell post and how it reached people, I’m like, it did work.”
Large, national businesses are also suffering. On Tuesday Pier 1 Imports announced that having declared bankruptcy, it will close all its retail stores. Also on Tuesday JC Penney filed for bankruptcy and announced it would close 242 stores.