Jerusalem shop owners struggle to survive, and worry about the future

Thursday morning began well for Brandon Treger, the coffee sommelier and owner of Coffee Powerworks near Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda Market.

For the first time in weeks, a policeman inspected and gave permission to Treger to offer takeout coffee at his Agrippas Street coffee shop.

“We’ve been telling people every day that we can’t serve them,” said Treger, a South African immigrant who opened Coffee Powerworks with his wife, Stephanie Treger, three years ago. “We stuck to the rules even though our neighbors opened.”

A former paramedic in South Africa, Treger said he well understood the need to carefully manage a traumatic event as significant as the coronavirus. Accordingly, the Tregers followed the rules, closed their coffee counter and kitchen, and switched to filling and delivering orders of fresh and ground coffee beans.

“We processed and ground through the day, and then packaged and delivered throughout the night,” said Treger, who completed deliveries with his wife at 3 a.m. on more than one day.

Brandon Treger was allowed on April 23, 2020 to open a window for orders at Coffee Powerworks, after weeks of the government closure due to the coronavirus (Courtesy Brandon Treger)

They delivered their coffee beans around Jerusalem, as well as to Mitzpe Yericho, Maale Adumim, Modiin and Beit Shemesh.

“We’re working five times as hard for less money and less profit,” said Treger. “We get it, there’s a plague of corona, that’s why times are tough. But we’ve managed to adapt and change, and under the circumstances, we are fortunate to be here, looking after each other, in this amazing country.”

Adapting to the changing times has become the mantra of many small business owners, most of whom haven’t been able to reopen yet.

While the Israeli economy is gradually allowing businesses to open after a weeks-long closure — household retailer Ikea opened its doors last Sunday — small businesses, the individually owned stores such as clothing boutiques, florists, hairdressers and gift shops have had to keep their doors locked and windows shuttered.

“How can they open up Ikea in this environment?” said Sarah Weinstein, whose high-end housewares store, 4U Gifts, was closed to customers from mid-March through last Sunday. “They’re not a stand alone shop, they’re not a small, independent store.”

At 4U, which has a regular roster of customers and has been around for 32 years — Weinstein bought the store from the previous owner — Weinstein began doing deliveries in the first weeks of the closure. She showed customers the products using WhatsApp video and delivered their purchases at the end of the day.

In the week before Passover, there were a small number of customers who wanted to buy some pots, pans and place settings for the holiday.

“A lot of them usually travel for Passover, so they’re not accustomed to being at home,” said Weinstein. “I would sell them two place settings of glass dishes.”

Given that at least 50% of the 4U Gifts business comes from wedding registries usually generated on the store’s website, that part of the business has been decimated as well, “until people start getting married again,” said Weinstein.

Sarah Weinstein said she finally redid the window of her housewares store for Yom Ha’atzmaut, even though there have been no customers due to the coronavirus (Courtesy Sarah Weinstein)

This week, Weinstein has been back at the store from 10-5, now that household stores can open. Only one customer at a time is allowed to enter, and each person has their temperature taken, and there are masks and gloves available for those who forget to bring their own.

For now, however, there are no lines outside her Hebron Road store.

“It’s a good thing I’m not paying anybody except for me,” said Weinstein.

She isn’t eligible for any of the grants being offered by the government, because her business is incorporated. The NIS 6,000 being given to independent contractors “is a joke,” said Weinstein, “It doesn’t even pay my rent.”

“It’s a domino effect,” she said. “My landlord needs the money, too. We’re all in the same boat, but we will survive in a new reality, whatever that is.”

Finding new methods of doing business helped some of the small business owners over the hump of the last few weeks, even if the financial benefits were minor.

Jerusalem clothing designer Anat Friedman said she was in shock for the first week and a half of the closure, after sending four workers on leave without pay and having halted the process of creating an online ordering system for her downtown boutique.

Jerusalem designer Anat Friedman decided to be the model for her spring collection when the coronavirus hit, shuttering her boutique and her business (Courtesy Adir Alharar)

She also hadn’t yet photographed her new spring collection.

But with at least half of her spring collection at home with her, Friedman decided that she and her mother would model the pieces and she would upload the smart phone photos to her website.

“It was new and weird to put myself on the website, but they were honest pictures,” she said. “A lot of women really connected to it and sent messages about how much they loved seeing the clothing on real people.”

The positive reinforcement motivated Friedman to continue, and she hired a photographer for a photo shoot of ten different customers at their homes, some with their mothers as well, for photos that will be used in an online catalog.

“If there’s any time to do it, it’s now,” she said.

Meanwhile, she is also handling deliveries to customers, offering free deliveries and returns, as well as a NIS 200 certificate that’s worth NIS 300 of purchases.

“I need my business to survive, and this is like a crowdsourcing solution,” she said.

Friedman feels a little less scared now, but is anxious about going back to the store, wondering if people will shop and spend money, and of course, knowing, that there’s no way to know.

“Will people spend money on something they don’t need?” asked Friedman. “Clothes are not medicine.”

Chloe Levy (middle) and Anna Hoenel, the co-owners of My Little Factory, scrambled to create their website and offer deliveries while their Jerusalem store was closed due to the coronavirus (Courtesy Chloe Levy)

Anna Hoenel and Chloe Levy, the co-owners of My Little Factory, which sells bespoke and imported baby goods and children’s toys, had the same concerns, said Levy.

The Old Katamon boutique had been closed since March 15, and they ended up scrambling to get their website ready.

“It pushed us to do it,” said Levy, who has been handling the deliveries for goods ordered from site. “It doesn’t work exactly like it’s supposed to, but at least we were able to pay our bills. Otherwise, we would have had to close.”

Handmade ukuleles that play Edith Piaf and John Lennon are some of the items sold at My Little Factory, a Jerusalem shop that has struggled to survive the closure due to the coronavirus (Courtesy My Little Factory)

Most of their products are hand-made by Hoenel and other Jerusalem craftspeople, from ukulele-shaped pillows that play Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder, to soft baby blankets, towels and flowered stuffed bunnies.

They haven’t received any help from the government, or credit lines from the bank, said Levy, which forced them to come up with other solutions.

Like the other small business owners, they also turned to WhatsApp, working with customers on video calls and sending them photos of items from the store.

And once the weather turned warm, they needed to move their inventory of 200 pairs of imported Saltwater sandals. Since Levy and Hoenel can’t physically help their young customers try on the American-made sandals, they will be doing door-to-doors sales in Modiin and Tekoa, where customers have helped set up WhatsApp groups for parents who want to purchase the simple leather sandals for their children.

“It’s the time to sell them,” said Levy. “If I don’t sell the inventory now, I’ll be stuck with 200 pairs of sandals.”