A Game Without Rules: Harbor House and VI Grill manage the pandemic

Photo: Harbor House general manager Jamie Gotshall and owner Richard Roberts.

By Katherine Palms

Sun contributor 

“The game is next week, but you don’t know the rules,” Richard Roberts reflected on running his Leelanau County businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Roberts owns The Harbor House in Leland, co-owns the county’s oldest, continually operated restaurant, the Village Inn in Suttons Bay—most commonly known as the VI Grill, runs real estate through Harbor House Properties LLC, and owns SAM Equities LLC in Lake Leelanau, a former restaurant currently available for rent.

“Everything was turned upside down,” said Roberts. “Every way you were conducting business had to be rethought — restructured. All this new information we had to read. We were now faced with spending time trying to figure out which direction to move in, in order to get ready for the game — when we should be spending our time doing the usual, typical things that are required for a successful summer.”

“There is no blueprint, there is no road map. You can’t just open up a book and say ‘OK this is what we are about to experience, OK let’s follow the steps.’ There are no procedures, no policies, there’s no protocol.”

Like business owners across the world, one day in March Roberts woke up and his restaurant and his other businesses had to close because of the state mandate. He dove deep into reading about all the different opinions and facts on the Coronavirus and worked to discern and then decide which paper, which article, and which source would inform his information. From there, Roberts moved accordingly to create protocols and guidelines to stay in the game. 

“Every day was a new challenge, because you would wake up and say, ‘what was true yesterday may not be true today,’ and that makes my circumstances change and that means my business has changed, and some maybe minor corrections, and some maybe major,” said Roberts.

Despite the uncertain times, Roberts has remained dedicated to providing proper care for his employees, customers and other business ventures. He also relied on his teams to move forward in each business, to the best of their ability.

It hasn’t been easy. Both Jamie Gotshall, general manager of the Harbor House, and Joshua Deters, chef and co-owner of the VI Grill, have had to work overtime to ensure safety, adaptability, efficiency and effectiveness since the start of the pandemic.

Both Gotshall and Deters value Roberts and their teams; the committed staffs at the Harbor House and the VI Grill are a like a family; eager to help, and interested in following the guidelines in order to ensure their safety and the safety of customers with whom they come in contact.

Gotshall said it was important to have daily and hourly communication — to know what could happen and what couldn’t. One of the hardest things has been dealing with customers coming from different states and different cities that have different rules, and varying restrictions, she said. “They might not be required to wear masks where they are from, and they find it frustrating to come in here, or they just don’t know they need to wear a mask, and that’s been hard.” Gotshall urges people traveling to “call ahead and research where you’re going and what you need to be prepared for.” She expressed, people can be proactive, instead of making employees have to tell them what to do.

Deters said the silver lining has been the VI staff’s ability to adapt. As they have followed new protocols and mandates, the team has shown flexibility as things have changed on a day-to-day basis. He concurred the hardest part has been having customers respect the policies they implemented.

“I don’t like to put a policy in front of a guest or a customer, ever,” said Roberts. “My policy works for most of the instances, but no policy in any company works 100 percent of the time. Employees have to think on their feet, and they have to be empowered to think for themselves. But now, there are certain protocols I couldn’t bend. I couldn’t say ‘Well, if they smile, and they are really nice, and they don’t look like they have COVID … it’s only 15 feet to the table’. With this pandemic we have policies where there are no exceptions. These are waters I have never been in before because there isn’t a single policy that I have changed to accommodate a guest.”

Roberts and Deters appreciate the hard work of their staff at the VI Grill. In order to support their team, for a six-week period they donated all profits back to the staff, based on the hours they worked.

At the VI Grill, Roberts said, the most important responsibility was to keep individuals working on a daily basis at the restaurant safe. “We have to protect each other from the virus and take care of each other first, and then we can take care of the guests,” he said. “Safety of employees is as important as safety of our guests.”

One of the largest changes the VI Grill undertook was acquiring a permit for their outdoor liquor service and transforming their employee parking lot into a new backyard “barn yard” space to serve customers. Roberts said he was grateful to have his son available to help out with the changes. They added fencing, a bar area, seating and decor to make it an inviting outdoor atmosphere to enjoy meal with family and friends.

At the Harbor House, wholesale orders have been delayed, hot selling items are unavailable, store hours had to be adjusted, the ice cream line was moved outside, and staffing pods were created to keep employees working with the same group each shift. All this was done in the hopes of keeping employees and customers safe.

At his apartment rental, Roberts had to commit to a strict check-in and check-out times, enhance the cleaning protocols, and unfortunately be more flexible with cancelations and adaptable with finding new renters at the last minute. As a landlord, Roberts said there is no guarantee the space is going to be rented. 

“How do you know what will happen with the second wave?” Roberts said, looking forward. “Will it be harder? the same? less intense? Each scenario has different circumstances and a different path.”

“Change is great for business, but you don’t want to be forced to change,” he added. “You want to be more proactive. You always want to improve the way you do things, but with COVID we were all forced to change — and that is not an enjoyable way to run a business.”

In order to keep our community in the game Roberts said we have to support each other, we have to support local.

“Everyone needs to support each other locally where ever possible,” he said. “If you can buy locally or nationally, I hope you choose locally. Because the character of the United Sates is on main street USA and I want to keep it that way.”

For Roberts, one silver lining of this pandemic has been the relationships he’s been able to nurture, with close friends and staff, but also with family.

“Growing my relationships with my wife and my two boys; the six months straight with both my boys at home,” said Roberts. “I’m sure they would rather be somewhere else at times, but that’s been the greatest part about this.” 

“It’s been a rewarding experience finding so many people willing to give time and effort for the common goal, to get through a problem,” he reflected. “It’s realizing this pandemic is bigger than yourself.”

The VI Grill looks to hire talented nice people to join the team. Roberts is patiently waiting for the right tenant to rent in Lake Leelanau. The Harbor House will stay open through the year and, in order to maintain safe social distancing within the store, will hold its Thanksgiving sale for two weeks this year, not just one. The sale runs from November 13-27 and features savings of 25-60% off products.