Businesses navigate detours and disease

Drivers aren’t the only ones being creative in response to the detours around Highway 61 construction.

Now that detours for the Highway 61 reconstruction project are in full effect, some local businesses are offering special products and services to boost business.

Tom Heffernan Ford is distributing buttons that read “I’m a Hero. I Found Tom Heffernan Ford in spite of the Hwy 61 Construction.”

The idea came from a similar promotion Heffernan saw about 50 years ago when he worked in St. Paul.

Highway 12 from St. Paul to Hudson, Wis., was under construction and a little restaurant along the way was suffering.

“There was no traffic and they were dying,” Heffernan said. “They just couldn’t make a go of it.”

Then the owner had an idea. According to Heffernan, he had buttons made that said, “I’m a hero. I found” the restaurant.

The buttons were a hit, and soon newspaper and television stations reported on them.

“It got to the point they were so busy they couldn’t handle it,” Heffernan said.

He’s hoping his buttons help draw customers to his Ford dealership.

Heffernan also put up white signs with red lettering pointing people toward his business.

Jil Garry at Treats and Treasures in Lake City has t-shirts for sale that say “Embrace the Detours. Lake City Minnesota.”

A vendor suggested the shirt during a conversation last fall about the upcoming construction, Garry said.

“We were talking about how you have to make the best of the change whether you are for it or totally opposed to it,” she said.

She said people are loving the shirts, so much so that she’s already placed another order for them. Unfortunately the pandemic has put her supplier behind and she’ll have to wait for her stock to be replenished.

The detour comes as many local businesses are already shuttered or have reduced operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Garry said it’s an additional challenge, but it’s better to have both happening at the same time rather than dealing with one and then the other in consecutive years.

Heffernan is offering free pickup and delivery for auto service customers living as far away as Alma, Wis., and Hager City, Wis.

If people want to look at a vehicle to purchase, they don’t have to come to his lot, he said, the dealership will bring it to them.

Garry said she’s ordered some COVID-19 inspired merchandise: facemasks that say “#mnstrong” and shirts that say “Spread Kindness, Not Germs.”

Early in the shelter in place, she said she wasn’t doing much. Another downtown business owner inspired her to do more.

Pumpkinberry Stitches owner Lisa Marien has been aggressively marketing her quilting kits through her Facebook page, selling kits and mailing them to buyers.

“I’ve been to the post office a lot,” she said.

Quilters have been busy during the pandemic making quilts and also masks, she said.

“Quilters are stepping up and making masks like crazy,” she said.

Keeping them supplied with elastic has been a challenge, she said.

Leveraging Facebook had been Marien’s plan to help cope with downtown road construction. Then COVID-19 happened.

“It was kind of a leap in and try it kind of thing but it’s kept me busy, which is good,” she said.

Following Marien’s lead, Garry offered curb-side pickup for Easter and was encouraged by the response.

“People were so wonderful,” she said.

Now she’s offering a Mother’s Day special and gearing up for online sales through the Treats and Treasures website and over email at lakecitytreats@gmail.com. People can also leave messages at 651-345-2882. Curb-side pickup is available Tuesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from Noon to 3 p.m.

“We’d have more business if people could come through the doors,” she said, “but we don’t get a choice.”