If you’ve been in when Drew or Courtney were working lately, you’ve probably heard a little of this… we’ve tried to keep social media pretty positive; however, it is time for us to shine a light on how tough this year has been for us and other small businesses across our city and country…
When we opened Bonus Round two and a half years ago our goal was to create a welcoming community space for friends to gather for a night of fun. We accomplished that goal and a LOT of fun was had! Bonus Round quickly became a self-sustaining business and at the beginning of 2020 we were finally seeing all of our hard work pay off with some strong growth, that all came to a halt in March.
Building a community space was at the core of our business, but because of the nature of this pandemic, that community has all but disappeared.
Once again, this week restaurants across the city have been forced to shut down for indoor dining. Unfortunately for us, this actually will not have as significant an impact as it will for some. We say unfortunately because it was clear (and understandable) that our customer base wasn’t ready to come back to our restaurant. We haven’t gotten anywhere near the amount of business we need to continue to operate since this pandemic started. We’re not alone in this though, restaurants across the city are absolutely struggling. Every week dozens more shut down permanently, many of which were long time fixtures with history much older than ours.
You’ll see a lot of focus on whether restaurants (and businesses where people gather closely) should be shut down or not. On a personal level, we’re very frustrated with the handling of the pandemic by all levels of government, and are deeply saddened by the loss of life & livelihoods thus far and still to come. We’ve absolutely believed and supported shut downs, and feel that none of them have gone far enough to protect people. That also includes providing support to people & businesses so that they can be as effective as possible. Until society has actually made it through this pandemic and has seen a drastic positive change, patrons are not going to be ready to dine out in restaurants again.
The reality is that loans and grants which were available early on were only meant to last 2-3 months. Bonus Round will not be able to survive this without the support from our community.
If you don’t know, Drew and I worked 4 long and hard years to open Bonus Round. We’ve put a lot of ourselves into this business, but we can’t do this alone. Up until this point we’d been reluctant to ask for help, we’re scrappy punk rockers and always find a way to make things work. Thus far we’ve managed to keep our doors open and we’ve managed to hold onto our staff. That’s no longer a certainty and right now we need help.
How you can help:
*Shop our retail offerings. We’ve dramatically increased our stock and selection. We have a wide variety, while still offering a well curated selection of rock solid games. If we don’t have what you’re looking for let us know and there’s a decent likelihood that we can order it in and have it within a week. We are still offering curbside pickup and will even bring the games out to your car if you give us a ring. When you are planning to come in and shop or pick up your games please be sure to check our adjusted hours etc.
You can shop our online store here: bit.ly/BRGCStore
*We’ve set up a GoFundMe to support the business and our staff. We know that there are a lot of folks out there that want to still help us but don’t want to buy new games right now. Share this far and wide and contribute if you can.
You can contribute to our GoFundMe here: bit.ly/SupportBRGC
We don’t want to close, and will do all that we can to ensure we’ll be here to serve you & facilitate games when this is all over, but we absolutely cannot do it without you.
-Courtney & Drew
*One last note from Drew. The holiday shopping season would normally be about to be underway, this year is surely gonna be unusual though. It is important that now more than ever we all make an effort to shop local wherever you are. It is easy and convenient to use a giant corporation named after a river, but the landscape of our cities is going to look wildly different over the next few years because of this pandemic. If you value living in a vibrant city with fun and interesting things to do please shop local even if it means you have to pay more than you would in the aforementioned company. The money you spend locally stays local and recirculates within your neighborhood economies.
