It’s been a little over a year since Costa Rica shut down travel from outside. Last March Caribeans was on track for one of the best years with tourism on the rise and more and more positive reviews of our tour.
April 2020 was absolutely terrifying as we ruminated on how to survive now that we had zero income. I am sure we weren’t the only business owners faced with the sense of loss and responsibility for the well being of not only our families needs but also those families of our faithful employees.
Promises of Government Support vaporized the moment we filed all the mountain of paperwork. Tourism was totally dead with no clear information on when we might be able to operate again.
After three weeks of “quedando en casa”, I discovered several buckets of paint in our storage room. A week later I had repainted the whole cafe. While I was painting many customers stopped in to see if we were open. So little by little I made coffees and smoothies for folks who asked.
We also restocked the shelves with chocolate. Once the word got out that you could come to Caribeans and get carry out, our long time regulars started to buy an extra bar or sometimes ten or twenty. Thankfully we had decided to produce as much chocolate as we could for the last two years and we could sell chocolate from our already made stock.
We wanted to keep paying the full rent as our rental money is the only source of income for our landlord. We needed to keep paying half of the electric bill. and we were paying out any vacation days owed to our employees.
Somehow we made it through six months without any employees. I spent my days making coffee drinks, selling chocolate, and making breakfasts and sandwiches. We needed to make $200 USD per day to stay open and have something to eat besides eggs and chocolate.
This time working as the only employee trained me to be more connected with my customers. I made some very good friendships during those six months. It seemed that our business was becoming more of a internet co-working space as well as a thriving coffeeshop.
Now once the world is getting a little more back to normal we have strengthened our business in the areas that always lost attention before the trials. So as we restarted the tours, we have a more balanced and diversified business.
No one knows what’s around the next corner, but this business owner is much more hopeful than I was a year ago.
