Courtesy / May Hall
In addition to running Slow Bell, May Hall is director of nursing at Falmouth By the Sea and participates in medical missions to Zanzibar, seen here.
Updated: January 11, 2021
With island visitation down, Chebeague café struggles to stay afloat
Courtesy / May Hall
Slow Bell Café on Chebeague Island, an important part of life in this small community, was hit hard by the pandemic. The owner has set up a GoFundMe campaign in hopes of making it through 2021.
A café on Chebeague Island that’s become an important part of life in this small community was hit hard by the pandemic.
Now the eatery is trying to raise $20,000 through a GoFundMe campaign in order to stay afloat.
Slow Bell Café experienced a pandemic double-whammy: The café saw a 60% drop in revenue and its proprietor, May Hall, contracted the virus during one of Maine’s earliest outbreaks and is still experiencing effects of the disease.
She created the fundraiser on Jan. 6.
“I endeavored to keep people employed and the island fed,” she wrote on the fundraising page. “It's been a tough year. Though our creditors, landlord, and some employees have been patient, there does not seem to be relief in sight. I've put more than $30,000 of my own money and another $20,000 in loans into the business just to limp along.”
GoFundMe is offering matching grants for businesses hard hit by the pandemic that are able to raise support from friends and family, she wrote.
The money will go to pay taxes, leases, wages, existing bills and start up costs for 2021, she wrote.
Health care career
Slow Bell is a seasonal business located on the north end of Casco Bay’s Chebeague Island, a few minutes walk from the ferry landing to Yarmouth. The café features scratch cooking using local ingredients when possible, and live acoustic music.
“Slow bell” is a nautical term related to a telegraph in early vessels that connected the bridge to the engine room. An order from the bridge to change speeds was called a “bell.”
Hall’s family summered in Maine throughout her childhood, and moved to Maine from Massachusetts when she was 12. She graduated from Freeport High School, then went to college out-of-state, finally moving back to Maine about 22 years ago. In 2012, she built a home on Chebeague.
For the first 20 years of her career, she was a general interest and nursing research editor, working from home.
But she decided to return to school and graduated from a nursing program in 2017. She went to work at a Falmouth nursing home called Falmouth By The Sea, where she is today director of nursing.
Since 2018, she’s taken part in three medical missions, with an organization called Baobab Canopy, to the small village of Chuini in Zanzibar.
Plus café work
In 2011, she worked one summer at the Slow Bell as manager and chef. She returned in 2016 to become manager and chef between school and work.
“I had a lot of irons in the fire,” she recalled.
In 2019, she decided to lease the café and run it as her own.
The café was a popular spot for islanders, summer residents and day-trippers, she said. The population numbers about 350 year-round and over 3,000 during the summer.
The first year under her ownership, the café did a season of live music, trivia nights, daily specials and local seafood, and sourced produce grown at the local Second Wind Farm.
“It’s one of the few places islanders can go out to eat,” she said. “It’s been a great place to have local artists display their work and local musicians to play. One summer resident has a band that comes back every year. It’ also a good opportunity to provide income for people on the island.”
Slow Bell employs about 17 people through the summer.
It’s also an attraction for day-trippers. When the nationally known Mallett Brothers Band played at the Slow Bell, “We had people come from Portland to see the band play and stay to have dinner,” she said.
One might say her summer schedule is a bit nuts.
“In the summer, I work in Falmouth, I go home on the 4 p.m. ferry, I go from the ferry landing to the restaurant, change my clothes in the bathroom, then cook for the night, prep stuff for the morning, then go back to Falmouth the next day,” she said. “My summers are just working.
The schedule slows in the winter, when the café is open only part-time, she said.
“I nap in the winter,” she joked.
$100,000 loss
In early 2020, she went on her third medical mission with Baobab Canopy.
“We left before anything was really happening with COVID, except there were fewer people flying,” she said. “It was the end of February and we returned the second week in March. We flew into New York. It was like a ghost town.”
Back in Maine, she quarantined for 14 days, then returned to Falmouth By the Sea and also started planning for Slow Bell’s 2020 season with her staff.
She developed COVID on May 5.
“I was out of commission for a month, missing our usual seasonal opening date of Memorial Day weekend,” she said. “Although we are primarily seasonal, we open at least two to three weekends a month in the off-season to help islanders have a nice place to have a meal.”
The Slow Bell team got its COVID plan in place to comply with health guidance, and opened for takeout the first week in June, right after Hall recovered.
“When we opened, it was a little slow to start,” she said. “Our business is reliant on multiple components. We usually have live music, a bar, food. It’s not usually just takeout.”
Hall invested in outdoor heating equipment and furnishings and began table service around July 4.
“It went fairly well,” she said. “Staffing was challenging.”
By the end of the season, gross revenue was down more than $100,000, from $185,000 to $82,000, compared with 2019.
Hall received money through the first round of the federal government’s paycheck protection program.
“But I had no way of knowing COVID would last the entire season and then some,” she said. “I had no way of knowing, also, that I would develop post-COVID syndrome, continue on oxygen at night indefinitely, and find it extremely challenging to meet both the business needs and the needs of my facility.”
Now, she said, she hopes the fundraiser will ensure the café can open this year.
“I'm hoping for a 2021 season that will be full of fun and a new normal,” she said. “We plan to continue to use PPE as a means of protecting both staff and patrons and will use outdoor dining as one of our primary approaches.”
She’s also hopeful that she’ll be able to expand operations to its original level in 2019.
“With the investments I've made in equipment and the commitment of amazing year-round staff members, I think we could have our first profitable year in 2021,” she said.
The disease has left her with less energy than usual and will need a new chef to help keep the business going during the upcoming season. But she was looking forward to providing takeout on an occasional basis this winter and was busily cooking over the past weekend, including key lime pies and cream puffs.
But the fundraiser is key.
“If I can’t raise the money, we probably won’t be able to open in 2021,” she said.
Click here to view the GoFundMe campaign.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments