OGDEN – As the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year, leading to new policies and restrictions designed to curb the spread of the virus, business at Coffee Links was in decline.
The public stayed near their home and rarely went out to reduce the risk of illness. Therefore the number of customers decreased.
“So we had to improvise,” said Mauricio Araujo, who runs his father Leon Araujo’s Ogden café. The result – Coffee Links created, among other things, pick-up and delivery options at the roadside.
It’s been a challenging year for many companies, probably most. On the bright side, Leon Araujo, like other Latino entrepreneurs from the Ogden area, says business at Coffee Links is recovering as the COVID-19 threat subsides. “We survived,” he said.
In a way, Latino and other minority owned companies had their own problems dealing with the pandemic, experts say. For one thing, the stress and concern caused by the pandemic appeared to be even greater for minority-owned entrepreneurs than for others. “Minority-owned entrepreneurs are more likely than non-minority owners to report difficulties with lending, express concerns about permanent closures and forecast declining revenues for the coming year,” a US Chamber of Commerce report said last August as the pandemic said actually began to hit the hardest.
In addition, many Latin American and other minority-owned companies are smaller businesses, which has created greater difficulty managing the pandemic-induced downturn and greater difficulty in accessing federal grants and loans to support affected businesses. “In our national sample of Latino-owned employer companies, we find that Latinos have fewer resources to weather the ongoing storm. Latin-owned companies have less cash available, and when Latinos apply for Payroll Protection Program funding, their half-rate white-owned company PPP loans are approved, ”a report from the Graduate School of Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative said Business from Stanford University, also published last August.
Araujo said that some Latino entrepreneurs who already have smaller businesses don’t always keep the records that credit institutions need for credit. “They never thought about it. When they start the paperwork, the banks say,” No, we need the bookkeeping, “he said.” They have nothing at all. “
Angel Castillo, an Ogden community attorney who worked with companies trying to get federal COVID-19 aid funding, repeated the same. Minority-owned companies trying to tap into the first pot of aid were faced with a “major hurdle” stemming from the obligation to include profit and loss accounts in their applications, which smaller companies do not always maintain. “If you’re a mom and pop burrito store, you probably won’t have someone to put an income statement on your books,” she said.
Compared to other groups, Latinos run a disproportionate number of food and service businesses, such as hair salons, which have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, noted Silvia Castro, director of the Suazo Business Center, which helps Latino and other minority entrepreneurs.
All in all, Araujo and other Latino entrepreneurs say they did it.
Marlen Quintero, who runs the five o’clock shadow barbershop in Ogden, recalls concerns last year when barbershops and salons had to temporarily close their doors due to government coronavirus restrictions. Like Araujo, Quintero originally comes from Mexico. “I was mostly concerned about my hairdressers because this is their full-time job, their only income,” she said.
Marlen Quintero in red, owner of the Five O’Clock Shadow Barber Shop at 455 24th St. in Ogden, poses in the shop on April 29, 2021. The hairdressers in the photo from left are Miguel Hernandez, Brian Aparicio and Kayla Dominguez, Lorenzo Arevalo and Gil Garcia.
However, when it reopened after the forced closure, customers kept coming in even though new security procedures had to be followed. “It was really great to see how our community is behind us,” she said.
In fact, Five O’clock Shadow has outgrown its old location, and Quintero uprooted the business and moved to 455 24th St. last January when the number of COVID-19 cases peaked in Utah. She was scared, she said, “but we knew we would make it anyway. We wanted to make the best of the situation. “
And despite the difficulties experts say some Latino entrepreneurs have faced in unlocking federal grant funds, many have been able to secure support.
Javier Chavez, owner of Javiers Authentic Mexican Food, a chain of restaurants in the Ogden area, also originally from Mexico, cited the company’s support and loyal customers with the enforcement. Javier has been in the business since February 30 years.
“It was hard, but with help from the state, the federal government and the community, we survived,” he said. “We’re fine.”
Omar Vazquez, who runs the Mexican restaurant El Changarro Loco in Ogden, has also made use of aid funds. Still, there were difficult times. “We had to fire all of our employees because we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was uncertain, ”said Vazquez.
As with Coffee Links, the staff at El Changarro Loco, which also runs a catering service, has been reduced to the family – Vazquez, who is from Mexico, his wife, and the couple’s two children. Now things seem to be back to normal and the workforce issues are swinging the other way – not enough people to keep up with customers when business recovers.
Now there are more shops, he said, “but there are no people who can work.”
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