Two local businesses have turned to crowdfunding to stay afloat during Gov. Brad Little’s stay-at-home order. The owners of Café Artista and Mad Greek have both started GoFundMe campaigns.
Bev Bafus, the owner of Café Artista, started a GoFundMe in order to qualify for the Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Relief Initiative. Intuit QuickBooks partnered with GoFundMe in response to challenges created by the coronavirus, a post on the Intuit blog stated. Bafus said Intuit will match funds donated to campaigns, increasing the amount of support to the business.
“It’s just for the matching funds, otherwise I would not have done that,” Bafus said. “I’ve always hesitated (to use GoFundMe).”
After Mayor Bill Lambert declared a state of emergency for Moscow, Café Artista switched to providing curbside services only. However, sales continued to drop to the point that Bafus had to close the coffee shop for drinks.
“We’re doing some bulk pastry orders now, but the reason we had to stop doing drinks is I can’t get milk,” Bafus said. “It’s a limit of two at every grocery store, and they will not give us an exemption for being a business. So, it’s either I have to go to five grocery stores a day, or I send my employees to five grocery stores a day, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of social distancing.”
Bafus does not think crowdfunding will be enough to save the coffee shop. She said that a Payroll Protection Loan under the Small Business Administration would be able to help.
In February, Café Artista was doing 20% better than in 2019 and was set to have its best year ever, Bafus said. The staff had already stocked up for expected crowds for Parent and Family Weekend and graduation. The cafe donated perishable supplies to its staff and local food banks, but non-perishable supplies like cups still sit in the cafe waiting to be used.
“Through no fault of our own, restaurants, bars and coffee shops seem to be taking the economic brunt of this (pandemic), and there’s no end in sight,” Bafus said. “We don’t have any idea how long we’ll be shut down.”
On April 6, Bafus updated on the Café Artista GoFundMe page that donations had allowed the business to pay most of its bills for the month. She added that the cafe opened back up for takeout and curbside orders on April 7. As of April 17, the campaign had raised $3,380 of its $5,000 goal.
Mad Greek, the other Moscow business using the Small Business Relief Initiative, had raised $2,150 of its $5,000 goal as of April 17.
Jenny Torgerson, owner of Mad Greek, declined to comment for this article.
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]