STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — When Tom Beyar thinks about March 2020 and last summer at this very time, he chuckles and shakes his head. In the pandemic, he said his 39-year old Beyar’s Market had the same aura as a supermarket panic before a snowstorm.
“But it was like that every day. It was overwhelming. I don’t know how we got through it,” Beyar confessed. As inventories disappeared in larger markets and big box stores, customers around the borough leaned hard on neighborhood grocers like Beyar’s in Willowbrook.
He said of pushing through the incredible demand: “I’ll be honest with you it was the whole team that did it. You couldn’t do that alone. I don’t even know how to put it.”
As Beyar recounted the days leading up to scarcities on paper towels, cleaning supplies and random food product, he recalls of the intensity, “It was fast-moving. In the beginning when we heard all the rumblings — we had paper towels. When you heard the big box stores were running out of toilet paper — we had it. But once it hit the media, over-buying trickled down to the smaller markets...”
Bob Moumblow, manager at Beyar's, spent most of his days sourcing product to fill shelves in the pandemic when big box stores couldn't fulfill consumer demand. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)
THE DARKEST DAYS
In late March, Beyar said he turned to Restaurant Depot in New Jersey to do shopping for his store. He said, “I went a couple of times a week. Where restaurants were closed, they had product for someone like me.”
He paused and laughed, “Well, that became short-lived. It all caught up to them as well — and our wholesaler, too.”
Beyar’s managed with off-brands. In the frenzy to keep stock on the shelves, store manager Bob Moumblow spent most of his workday sourcing product. It actually became a full-time endeavor for him.
Were there insurrections in the small aisles or difficulties controlling customers in the darkest days of the COVID-19 crisis?
“We didn’t have any of that,” said Beyar, adding, “What we did have — it was a challenge in the beginning —was we started the mask mandate three weeks before the actual mandate. People weren’t happy with that. I would stand at the door to explain, ‘My workers don’t want to work without a mask.’”
He bought shields and goggles for his crew. At one point his wife’s Aunt Jean from Massachusetts was sending down homemade masks for employees.
In hindsight, he said, “I made a good call on wearing the face coverings so early because it eventually went into a mandate. But then it was becoming overwhelming keeping people limited to the store. I had to hire people to stand at the door. I didn’t have the gut to do that — you know, keep people waiting.”
Beyar figured the key to preventing indoor traffic jams was to limit the number of people queuing up in the deli department, a popular section of Beyar’s that has been its heart and soul since 1982.
“We went from three deliveries a day to 30 to 40 and we had to keep them limited because we had to take orders, shop it, ring it...,” said Beyar. His staffer, Elizabeth Termine, filled orders with an assistant and one driver.
“So we were keeping that flowing,” said Beyar.
The other persnickety instance in the pandemic, he said, “Everybody was a senior citizen.” Store policy at Beyar’s, by tradition, has meant free delivery to those 65 and older. But when Beyar himself dropped off groceries to youthful looking customers he realized that some had taken advantage of the store’s hospitality. He shrugged it off.
Overall, he said, “People were very gracious.”
PHENOMENONS OF THE GROCERY WORLD
With curfews and a general reluctance of shoppers to come out at night, Beyar’s started to limit its hours. At one point it closed three hours earlier than normal.
He said, “We chose 6 p.m. at one point to stock our store and straighten up, see what we had.”
Now, shortages continue. At one point in 2020, there was a paucity of yeast, flour, seasonings and the Goya line. Still the situation remains on some Goya-brand beans, mainstream sodas and Frito-Lay product.
The market man explained the phenomenon. He said, “You have limited people working. It starts at the factories, then it goes to the trucking.”
While potato, macaroni and coleslaw salads are hot sellers right now, chicken, beef and pork sales have slowed in Beyar’s meat department. Tom Beyar thinks that customers are spooked by the word on the street that prices are too high on certain proteins.
A few new repertoires have stuck around post-pandemic. Beyar said, “One thing is we did develop a lot of new customers from more of a distance away from the store. We did get a lot of feedback from the hospital.” Subsequently, a new germaphobic approach to catering morphed about with packaging and shipping. Beyar’s invested in securable, carboard catering boxes that fit individually-wrapped and labeled sandwiches tidily inside.
Beyar said, “We had to go the extra mile to make the hospital staff and customers safe when they’re eating in a group-type or picnic setting.”
On labor, he said, “I didn’t lose any workers. I gained workers. College students worked online and from home. So we lucked out. We’re just losing them now. We were at least lucky with that at one point.”
He said, “When you look back, it really was like a snowstorm everyday. And how we kept up with it, I don’t know how we did it. We had a stable, excellent crew. We didn’t close one day.”
He knocked the desk with a knuckle and said, “And — nobody really got sick.”
Pamela Silvestri is Advance Food Editor. She can be reached at silvestri@siadvance.com.
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