At first, Kayak Cafe seemed ready to thrive during a statewide ban on dine-in service. Since opening in May 2019, the cafe had become a success thanks not only to its lattes, but to its meal delivery service, which brought soups and snacks to residences around Cordova. But since the March 18 ban went into effect, Kayak Cafe’s business has fallen by roughly 95 percent.
Kayak Cafe must sell around 40 cups of coffee per day to break even, co-owner Karen Deaton Perry said. This was easy to accomplish before the dine-in ban, when the cafe attracted 50 customers on a bad day. Now, Deaton Perry serves fewer than six customers per day, most of them friends or family members.
“My mom came in and bought a drink, and my best friend came in and bought a drink, but do they really count?” Deaton Perry said. “I thought that we’d get a butt-ton of delivery orders: anybody and everybody being like, ‘Come bring me food!’ … But now we’re spending more money on electricity than we’re making. I don’t know how much longer we can afford to do that.”
The cafe had banked enough emergency funds to make it through a month of losses, Deaton Perry said. Additionally, some customers have purchased gift cards in order to support the cafe. Deaton Perry’s parents own the building housing Kayak Cafe, meaning that, even if the cafe does shut down until the coronavirus pandemic passes, it doesn’t risk losing access to the venue.
In the meantime, the near-total collapse of patronage has left Deaton Perry with plenty of spare time for doing chores, catching up on paperwork and taking her canoe out to Hartney Bay. Trenton Perry, Karen Deaton Perry’s husband and business partner, sees it as a kind of involuntary vacation.
“It’s stressful and not stressful at the same time,” Trenton Perry said. “We don’t have money coming in, but, at the same time, it’s not that busy.”
For the time being, Kayak Cafe will keep its walk-up window open. The cafe may consider shortening its open hours before making the decision to close down entirely, Karen Deaton Perry said.
“We want people to be able to stay at home and keep their families safe,” Karen Deaton Perry said. “Of course, that’s the most important thing — that above anything else. But, at the same time, it sucks for our business and every other business in town… You just try and be productive and not think about the fact that there’s zero money coming in.”
