MORGANTOWN — A downtown small business that is “a real credit to Morgantown” is set to reopen after temporarily closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gary Tannenbaum, owner of the Blue Moose Café, looks forward to the reopening of the Walnut Street café and has plans for moving forward.
Tannenbaum said the café is undergoing minor repair work that couldn’t be done while the café was open. Existing features of the café, such as its air filtration system, are being modified as protective measures against COVID-19.
Tannenbaum is also thinking of innovative ways to enhance business at the café, though this week he couldn’t share many details regarding those plans.
“During this pandemic, when business is cut in half or worse, you have to get creative … I’m looking at different ways to be flexible or resilient,” Tannenbaum said.
Tannenbaum said securing funding through a PPP loan he had been waiting for put the reopening of the café in motion.
While the severity and the longevity of the COVID-19 pandemic have been challenging for him and his business, Tannenbaum has a positive attitude toward reopening and moving forward.
“Now it seems like maybe we’ve turned the corner [of the COVID-19 pandemic], and things will be getting better. I try to be hopeful about that,” Tannenbaum said.
Tannenbaum said his employees, who were able to receive unemployment benefits during the café’s closure, are equally excited about being able to get back to work.
“[We] have to be hopeful that the business is going to come back because if it doesn’t, a lot of us are going to be in trouble,” Tannenbaum said.
Cheryl Baker, a Morgantown resident, said she’s been a frequent customer of the Blue Moose Café for about 11 years.
Baker said she first encountered Tannenbaum when she worked at a local bank, and after getting to know him she decided to visit the Blue Moose Café out of curiosity.
“When you walk in, it’s just a homey atmosphere,” she said.
Baker said she was able to relax at the café during stressful times in her life, and the café’s open mic nights helped her to meet new people and embrace her love of music. She said Tannenbaum and the staff always made her feel very welcome at the café despite frequently having a line of customers to the door.
Baker’s health conditions deem her a high-risk individual, so she wasn’t as able to visit the café as often as she would have liked during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, she often sent someone to pick up an order for her to try to continue to support the business.
Despite her high-risk status, Baker said she plans to go to the café herself when it reopens – she misses it that much.
“I hope it continues to stay open for a long time and I hope Gary’s able to always be the owner. He has made a difference there; I know he has,” Baker said.
Baker recounted a few of her fondest memories at the café, including a candlelit open mic night during a power outage and the frequent performance of an original song about downtown Morgantown by one of the musicians who played at open mic nights.
Baker said there was also an instance in which Tannenbaum sent her a video of a live performance of a cover of a song she loved when she in the hospital.
“They are a real credit to Morgantown in the way of a small business. I’m so glad they have stuck it out as long as they have, and that they’re going to have a reopening soon,” Baker said.
The Blue Moose Café announced its reopening, tentatively slated for March 1, in a Facebook post last week after temporarily closing due to the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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