Kevin Promenschenkel

Click here for Promenschenkel’s Your Story from earlier in the pandemic.

“We shut down and it just killed us. Even if they weren’t going to come in and shut us down, we would have closed anyway. There’s no way we could make our bills. We stayed open because we wanted to save our business. Once people realized we were fighting they came out of the woodwork to support us.”

“We survived it, but not without the penalties of people’s opinions. Still, never heard a single case of somebody saying they got COVID from Poopy’s.”

“We remodeled and totally changed in the way we’re doing business because of the last two years. We had to eliminate half the waitstaff. Wages went up a lot the last two years. I’m going from 80 employees to like 40.”

“We’re going to start serving food again March 3. We’re gonna probably bring in some food trucks out back to pick up the slack. Some won’t like the changes. I would simply tell them this is the cost of doing business under the conditions that we were forced to do business in. I don’t see it ever going back to normal.”

“We hope the new model works. If things don’t work out and we’re closing, I would say it’s all because of COVID and the way things were the last two years.”

“Utilities went up, food costs, gas prices, everything has gone up, which means we got to raise prices. But when you’re a small business in a little community it’s hard to raise prices.”

“I stayed open as did most Savanna stores. This little town was different. Our local politicians left us alone. The city of Savanna pretty much said, ‘We wish you guys would not do this, but we’re not sending the police.’ Carroll County backed off, too.”

“I got threats from public officials. The Illinois Gaming Commission threatened to pull in my games and the state liquor threatened me over my liquor license. Nobody came forward.”

“Everybody’s got their own opinion about it. I got COVID myself before Christmas this year. It put me in the hospital for four days. I definitely understood how bad it could be, but when people are struggling – when their livelihood is at risk – you’ve got to figure out what to do.”

“We stayed open because we wanted to save our business. People that came here weren’t forced. I left it up to the people to make their own decisions. It definitely hurt our business, but if I wouldn’t have done what I did I wouldn’t even be in business today.”

“Some people never recouped from the decisions made by our governor. I personally think shutting the world down made life worse for near everybody. He put a lot of people out of business. He’s a multibillionaire. He can’t feel what we feel. It ain’t never gonna affect his pocket.”

“We’ve recovered pretty good, still we’ve struggled. If they keep adding these taxes onto business, with the cost of inflation, then expect to see more and more businesses close.”

“Especially the small guys like us.”

Kevin Promenschenkel
Poopy’s biker bar
Savanna, Illinois