06/22/2022
COVID killed The Shack! 2019 was our best year as far as our sales, between $800,000 and $900,000. That year the books were always in good shape, I didn't need to loan any money back to the company for operating expenses (which I needed to do in many of the previous years), and if we wanted to buy anything for the business, the money was there to do so. 2020 started out strong and we were planning our St. Patty's celebration, which was huge for us the previous year, and then, March 17th 2020, the world stopped spinning and everything was shut down. Years earlier, our business was mostly younger patron who liked to drink until close. That crowd stayed with us for years until they got older, got married, had children, and moved into a different life style with much less drinking. Our business moved on also, to an older crowd coming in with friends and family for our food, with still a healthy percentage of younger people hanging out. After March 17th 2020, we lost a large percentage of our older crowd. We have continually lost money since then, We lost all of the first PPP loan, the second PPP loan, and the money that I loaned the business during these two plus years. I have often loaned the business money to get over the hump, but this time seems to be different, our volume just got crushed. Not crying, just putting it out there as some of the things that went into my decision to close for now.