Freeport businesses meet pandemic challenges

Each type of firm faces unique issues.

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Pandemic closures struck businesses harshly everywhere, and Freeport was no exception. Five very different businesses in the village exemplify the complexity of surviving Covid-19.

Ben Jackson

Freeport Chamber of Commerce President Ben Jackson has run Ben’s General Contracting Corp., on Suffolk Street, for 40 years.

“During the pandemic we were lucky, because we were listed as an essential company,” Jackson said. “We did jobs like building a firehouse, repairing flood work and fixing things like a tree thrust through a house. We got the [Paycheck Protection Program] loan, and I made sure everybody got taken care of, whether or not they worked.”

Nonetheless, in the wake of reopening, Jackson said, “I struggle to hire.” He speculated that the extra federal unemployment money contributes to people’s decisions to stay home rather than seek work.

“The lack of workers limits capacity,” he said. “We lose business. Since reopening, business has picked up. The problem is getting the work done. When unemployment runs out, it will help.”

According to the New York State Department of Labor, the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program, which went into effect April 5, 2020, will expire after the benefit week ending September 5.

Lois Howes

From her home in Freeport, Lois Howes books tours and airline tickets for Superior Travel. She and six other travel advisers work as independent contractors under the Superior Travel umbrella.

The pandemic closures snuffed out tours and sharply reduced air travel. Howes and her colleagues still had business to attend to, though. “For 18 months, [travel services] just gave back refunds,” she said. “Now tour operators are trying to get back up and rehire.”  Bookings are really picking up, she said.

Howes and two colleagues, Joanne Hunt, in New Jersey, and Denise Payne, in Pennsylvania, had a hand in the business uptick. All three are presidents of their local chapters of the American Society of Travel Advisors. They contacted their state legislators and also traveled to Washington, D.C., to talk to their representatives about laws affecting travel advisers. They helped restart Alaska cruises.

“While we were there,” Howes recounted, “they passed the act to allow [Alaska] cruise ships to bypass the stop in Canada so they could sail round trip from Seattle. We lobbied hard for that. We also lobbied to be included in the Covid compensation programs.”

So far, Howes added, despite the threat of the Delta variant, “We’re getting there, and things are working.”

Mike Sadaati

Both Mike Sadaati and his wife, Maryam, are engineers, but they decided to become insurance agents. “We do this,” Mike said, “because we love people, we love to help people, we love to communicate with people.”

The couple opened their Allstate agency, on West Sunrise Highway, in mid-2019.

“I have to appreciate Freeport,” Sadaati said. “Mayor Kennedy came to meet with us, talk to us.”

Unfortunately, six months after they opened, the pandemic shut their agency down. Their five employees left. Remote work brought little reward, and clients who had lost their jobs canceled their insurance — some even for their cars. With no jobs to drive to, they surrendered their license plates.

The federal Paycheck Protection Program helped the Sadaatis maintain their office.

“Monica was great,” Sadaati said, referring to Monica Bennett, of the Freeport Chamber of Commerce, “because she was talking to us, sending us emails, showing us how to open all the doors.”

Reopening brought hope. The Sadaatis hired back a previous employee, Onell Suero, who is bilingual in English and Spanish. They unlocked the doors of their airy, artfully decorated office.

Walk-in business from the neighborhood and in-person appointments are the lifeblood of insurance.“Over the phone, people aren’t likely to talk,” Sadaati said. “I have to know what they do before I can tell what [insurance] is good for them. People come here, they become our best friends. The door is open.”

Ivan Sayles

Ivan Sayles operates two Nautical Mile restaurants, Tropix on the Bayou and Rachel’s Waterside Grill. When Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for restaurants to offer nothing but drive-through and takeout, Sayles and business partner Rich Venticinque added a pandemic twist when filling orders.

“You bought a family meal from us,” Sayles said, “you got a roll of toilet paper with it.”

Multiple factors have affected reopening. “Customers aren’t the biggest challenge right now,” Sayles said. “It’s sporadic shortages in the supply chain, and fluctuating prices. When we go to Restaurant Depot, there’ll be whole sections of, just, they’re out of it … Gatorade, ketchup, it’s just unavailable for a couple of weeks. We took crab cakes off our menu because jumbo crabmeat went up to $50 a pound. I’d have to charge $30 for a crab cake, and nobody’s going to pay that.”

The situation called for nimbleness. “We switched to a guacamole crab dip,” Sayles said. “It’s interesting, and it tastes great.”

Like Ben Jackson, Sayles has had trouble hiring enough employees. He has closed the restaurants on Mondays and Tuesdays, when the stream of customers is lowest. 

On a Sunday afternoon at Rachel’s, Sayles looked around at customers enjoying their meals.“Two summers ago, it would’ve been packed,” he said. “But it’s good. I don’t know — what’s good anymore? It’s different.”

Anthony Ambrogio and Sal Mastro

All Pro Sound and Music had a Freeport address from September 2019 to mid-March 2020. Owners Anthony Ambrogio and Sal Mastro combined decades of experience in DJ and sound engineering to start the business together. Ambrogio had also been a school music administrator.

“We provide DJ content and sound reinforcement,” Ambrogio said, “video screens for corporate work, parties, weddings, and video editing for school districts, especially during Covid.”

The pair did many events on the Nautical Mile and elsewhere. They renovated and soundproofed a space on West Sunrise Highway in Freeport to include a showroom, a music lesson area and a recording room. Six months later the pandemic arrived, canceling in-person events and slashing All Pro’s income.

Ambrogio made the most of his school administration background, creating music videos for schools whose students couldn’t showcase their skills together on a stage. But the firm still had to give up its Freeport space and make an office out of a mobile trailer on Mastro’s property.

As pandemic restrictions have lifted, All Pro has experienced, in Ambrogio’s words, “pent-up demand.” The firm produced a “sweet-17” event for a girl who had missed her sweet-16 party. Musicians and sound engineers who worked with All-Pro before are returning. Business is getting brisk.

“The Freeport Chamber of Commerce has been an integral part of keeping the business afloat through the pandemic,” said Ambrogio, “because they distributed information from the government, so we had access to government officials. This support has been a key aspect of the chamber’s leadership over the last year.”