In November, a month before Hunter Bell graduated from culinary school at the Mississippi University for Women, he and his wife Hannah first discussed plans to buy a food truck. By January, they’d decided they would go through with the purchase.
But in mid-March, when the Bells flew to Virginia to pick up the truck — its interior and exterior already customized after consultations with designers — the COVID-19 pandemic began to make its presence known in the U.S.
Three days later, when the couple returned to Starkville amid major changes wrought by the virus, it was clear their business model wasn’t going to work.
“We just kind of tried to figure out how we were going to adapt,” Hannah said.
Hoping to avoid spreading the virus through long lines, the Bells decided to make the newly opened Mom & Pop Food Truck + Catering a delivery-only business. Now, they drive the truck around a different Starkville neighborhood each day to serve casseroles and other dishes to customers who ordered ahead.
“It was not the original plan,” Hannah said.
She said adapting her and her husband’s new business wasn’t necessarily hard — rather, she said, “it makes you be creative.”
“I wouldn’t say that there’s been anything crazy — other than just changing our whole concept,” Hannah said, perhaps understating.
The Bells aren’t alone. Several other new businesses in Starkville and around the Golden Triangle have faced similar challenges induced by the pandemic, struggling financially and mentally with the consequences of the virus.
Chip Templeton, director of the Mississippi Small Business Development Center at Mississippi State University, said the impact of COVID-19 came as a shock for business owners around the area.
“Mostly, it’s just taken them by surprise, and they didn’t account for a surprise like this because it’s such a rare event,” Templeton told The Dispatch.
Templeton, whose office provides small business-related counseling for Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Noxubee, Clay, Webster, Monroe, Choctaw, Kemper, Montgomery and Lauderdale counties, said he’s seen an increased volume of calls from people around the area who are unsure if starting a new business will be worth it.
“A lot of times, people realize it’s not worth the risk, and that challenge is kind of off the table,” Templeton said.
In the 2019 fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019, Templeton said the center consulted with about 300 business owners and helped provide information and assistance leading to the founding of roughly 30 companies.
Since last July 1, about 250 businesses have contacted the office, and Templeton said there seems to be some hope: In the past week or two, he said, interest in starting new businesses has increased — a sign that things are calming down at least a little bit.
Getting excited again
Robin Husbands and her husband Vern Wunsch started Properties at 4300, which includes venue space and a bed and breakfast, in Starkville in March.
“This had been a dream of mine for many, many years: owning a bed and breakfast,” Husbands told The Dispatch. “It was like, ‘Oh, my dream is about to come true.'”
Before the virus hit, the couple booked a party for graduation weekend at Mississippi State. They were fine-tuning the septic systems and putting roofs on the property when it was shut down as a result of the pandemic before ever being opened.
“Not only was it a bit financially devastating, it’s also kind of emotional when you have a dream invested in it,” Husbands said.
Now she’s accepting reservations again for as soon as customers are willing to come. The property has booked a wedding for June 6, a graduation party for June 27 and a wedding scheduled for late August.
“I’m starting to get excited again,” Husbands said.
Husbands’ feeling of relief was shared by customers and business owners around the area.
Starkville franchise manager Cameron Parker said patrons of Georgia Blue, which reopened its dining room May 13, have shown happiness and support for the business.
“Everybody has been ecstatic that we’re back,” Parker said.
Parker, who also operates Chicken Salad Chick and the Riley J’s StrEATery food truck in Starkville, officially opened Georgia Blue’s location on South Jackson Street on March 2. It was closed March 18, and Parker said he was grateful that the two-week test run provided employees he trained for more than six weeks a chance to use the skills they had just learned.
“I think if it would have happened before we had those two weeks open, I don’t know if we would have been able to get everybody back,” Parker said.
Still, Georgia Blue is currently at 50 percent capacity per state regulation and closes from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. every day to deep clean, signs that things aren’t back to normal yet in the restaurant business.
Fitness factors in
On the night of May 10, before Thomas Berkery opened The Gym in Starkville for the first time, he told his son, “‘This is probably as clean as this place will ever be.'”
Berkery, a teacher and baseball coach at Starkville Academy, was ready to open his gym in the former Anytime Fitness building on Highway 12 at Middleton Court by the end of spring break in March. Then the pandemic hit, postponing the opening for roughly two months.
“We were really close,” Berkery said. “We were set up. It was basically just a matter of getting the power turned on and cable and internet and all that. We had to really hold off on a lot of it just because we didn’t know when they’d let us start.”
On May 11, the long-awaited opening day, Berkery said he and his staff had been “cleaning like crazy”: wiping down machines multiple times, sanitizing and deep cleaning the whole building before it opened Monday morning.
He said the sanitation practices and reduced hours — per state regulation, gyms must be closed by 10 p.m. — in addition to clients’ own precautions to avoid spreading the virus make the gym a clean and safe environment.
“Sometimes, you have people that come in the gym, and they’re sweating all over the place, and they don’t think to wipe down,” Berkery said. “Well, right now, everybody’s wiping down everything, so I think for those that are coming, it’s a really safe time to be at the gym.”
But Berkery, who said Saturday he’s up to a couple dozen members, acknowledged that not everyone feels equally safe. With death rates much higher for older people, most 60-to-80-year-olds aren’t ready to return to normal — which includes going to the gym.
“We’re still missing a good bit of the population,” he said. “A lot of people are just scared to get back out.”
New types of businesses
Templeton pointed out another sign of the new reality caused by the pandemic: the formation of novel styles of companies.
“Sometimes, it makes other types of businesses be created that never existed before,” Templeton said.
Matt Rose, the owner of the Island Cantina in Iuka, is an example. Motivated by a food supply chain he said has been “tossed up in the air,” he started Deliver MS, a food delivery service aimed at customers in Columbus, Starkville and West Point, in March.
Rose accepts orders by 2 p.m. Wednesday and Friday for deliveries on Thursday and Monday, respectively. He said his two delivery drivers carry out 20 to 30 orders per week.
Rose said produce sells well and that he still has a good supply of ground beef and chicken thanks to his restaurant’s suppliers. Apart from food items, he’s currently offering toilet paper, paper towels, bleach and laundry soap.
Rose stressed that his business can not only survive the pandemic but persist after it. Once COVID-19’s influence recedes, he hopes to keep serving elderly people and those who rarely leave their homes, and he’s working to fine-tune his service over the next few months.
Even after the pandemic ends, Rose said he expects Deliver MS to persist. He hopes to serve older people and those who rarely leave their homes, and he’s working to fine-tune his service over the next few months.
“We’ve been told many times that it’s the elderly and shut-ins that will continue to buy,” Rose said. “So that’s really where we’re going.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 31 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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Related Photos
The Mom & Pop Food Truck + Catering sits outside Twigs Nursery and Landscaping on Friday in Starkville. Owners Hunter and Hannah Bell partnered with the nursery, which let the truck operate there from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Photo by: Courtesy photo/Hannah Bell
