“Eventually, John bought a couple buildings in town and made a steakhouse out of one. To stay closer to family, I chose to live in the Midwest, so I bought the building next to the steakhouse to open the comedy club.”

“We worked in a sort of partnership where we would pitch shows to the restaurant crowd. Besides doing shows at the Comedy Club, I could perform in about six or seven other theaters in the area. Once COVID hit, I lost three of those gigs immediately. The club has never really been a money maker, so off-site shows were really helping to supplement my income besides shows at the club.”

“We were closed about March through July, but then we were able to do a couple shows until about the second week of November. From mid-November to late January we were shut down again. We’ve recently moved to Tier 2, so we [had] some first shows the weekend of Jan. 22-23.”

“With regards to licensing, places similar to mine pay annual fees for liquor licenses or health department checks. But we’ve been shut down over six months of the year, so I wrote my state representative and senator hoping we get some credit back for the months we were closed. My rep [didn’t respond], but my senator did. However, they basically said ‘they’d look into it’ and I haven’t heard anything back.”
 

“Typically, it’s just myself and the bartender plus the comedians, so we didn’t qualify for the PPP loans, but I did apply for the Business Interruption Grant. It seems like all the money just went to the big clubs or Chicago area clubs. I didn’t hear of anyone around me getting any assistance.”

“Pre-COVID regulations we could seat about 100. If we are open now, we would be at 30% capacity which is about 25-30 people. Everyone gets paid less because we don’t have the capacity we used to. There’s a big difference between getting 80 people to pay full price versus 20 people to pay full price.”

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