Local stores around the area have made adjustments to how they operate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Businesses classified as "non-essential" were able to begin reopening to in-store customers following the expiration of state's stay-at-home order at the beginning of this month. However, some businesses in Moniteau County have been able to keep their doors open throughout the past few months, by adhering to public health guidelines, and are now beginning to make the approach back toward normalcy.
Lucille Rosenmiller, the owner of Sweet Buy and Buy, said that during the order, the store dropped its hours down to noon-4 p.m. Now the order has expired, Rosenmiller said the store is back to full-time hours of 8 a.m-5 p.m.
Rosenmiller said customers adjusted quickly to the new hours during the order.
"(The hour change) was put on Facebook, and I had a sign on the door also. Because of the COVID-19 (pandemic), I changed hours and if customers came to the door, they would know it," Rosenmiller said. "Some of them would say 'Oh I was there in the morning' and I would say 'Well, I am not here now for a while.' It worked out well - then people just started coming at noon."
Currently, Rosenmiller said there is a 10-person limit while in the store. She said there is no requirement to wear a mask while inside, however.
"So far, it has not had to be enforced because I don't have that many customers at one time here," Rosenmiller said. "I have never worn a mask and I am not afraid of this stuff. I am comfortable with it with the way we are going. If customers want to wear (a mask), they can wear it. If they don't, I am fine with it."
AnJanette Volkart, the owner of The Flower Shop For All Occasions, said during the order, decisions on how to proceed with the store were made day-by-day and week-by-week.
"Within the first week, we still did what we were doing, just not knowing to what extent it would affect us," Volkart said. "I gave my (employees) the option to go home and talk to their families and make those decisions for themselves on how they wanted to do this. Some went home, some had to go home because of their age and I just did it day-by-day."
Volkart said she was unsure if the store would have to close during this time or not.
"I didn't think we would be able to stay open. Each week I thought we would have to be closed, but then we were able to stay open," Volkart said. "When Cole County shut down I thought 'Okay that's it, that is our week we are going to have to close' and then when the state shut down, we had really prepared to close."
However, after discussions with fellow business owners, Volkart said the staff at The Flower Shop figured that if the shop continued to operate the way it had been, it could continue staying open. Volkart said this is nice because customers were calling, and they were not ready for the shop to close.
With the stay-at-home order over, Volkart said she thinks things are starting to get back to normal.
"We had an excellent Mother's Day and we are in the middle of Memorial Day (sales) right now. I think for us wondering how our weddings were going to be and deciding how many people they can have, that has been interesting," Volkart said.
Customers have been staying aware of public health guidlines, as Volkart said they ask questions about if they can come into the store or not and how many people can come into the store at one time.
"We were fortunate enough to not be in the middle of big, big holidays," Volkart said. "We have to count our people, but we don't have those issues until we had Mother's Day and Memorial Day. But our customers have been so knowledgeable about what to do and considerate. It just seemed like the people in our area had common sense and that just went well."
Volkart said it was interesting to hear many people thank them for being open and letting customers come into the store.
Talking to the customers also helped the store come up with some ideas during the time that most businesses were being forced to start to adjust.
"We got complimented so many times on what cute things we did and came up with such creative ideas, but it was really our customers who, by having conversations with them, we would figure out that 'Oh, they are looking for this' or 'Oh, they can't go do this, so let's find a way that we could help them,'" Volkart said. "Our customers were still able to call on the phone and have conversations with us that they've always had, and we were able to take that time and talk to them, and they could feel connected and we got to feel connected to them, too, because they were so appreciative of what we were doing. Truly, it all came from them and their ideas and interactions."
Julie Bolinger, the owner of Winding Road Gifts & Interiors, said that after doing some research to make sure they could stay open during the order, the store adhered to social distancing guide lines. The employees also sanitized the store frequently.
"That meant we had to stay 6 feet away from customers and when I had an employee in the store, we had to keep our distance away from each other," Bolinger said. "We would sanitize after every customer came in and anytime they touched the counter or other places, we would try to sanitize after them."
The store only allowed four customers inside the store at one time for the duration of the order, Bolinger said.
"That wasn't really a problem because we had so few shoppers - we probably had only one or two shoppers come in, so that wasn't a big deal," Bolinger said.
The store also found alternative ways to take payments from customers as it used Facebook to work with customers, and Winding Road also offered in-town deliveries and curbside pick up.
Bolinger said the community was very supportive during this time.
"There were a good group of people who wanted to make sure the local businesses stayed open," Bolinger said. "So they were very happy to shop with us on Facebook, we did some live sales and we had a really high amount of viewers during that time. It went over really well."
People were happy, Bolinger said, and there were some who didn't mind going into the store in person regardless. She said Winding Road also allowed some private shopping hours so people could just call and schedule a time to shop, with the doors closed to anyone else during that time. A lot of customers knew to call in advance and make sure there were not any private shoppers because they wanted to come in and look around that day, Bolinger said.
Even with the order over, Bolinger said the store will continue to do what is most comfortable for the customer.
"If they want to wear a mask, we make it clear that is perfectly fine and if they don't want to wear a mask, we don't wear masks so they are welcome to not," Bolinger said. "If they are concerned about the amount of people in the store, then they wait until people leave the store to come in. We still offer curbside pick-up for anybody that doesn't want to come into the store. We will probably still keep all those options. We are happy to keep a few of the things that we did in order to serve the customers the best way that we can."