Curbside and Delivery Are OPEN—But What About the Shops?
By now you’re probably aware that we have two great options for customers who live close to our stores: local delivery and curbside pickup. We’ve loved seeing some of you from your cars as we fulfill your curbside orders, and we miss having you in our stores. Many of you have inquired about our target date to reopen. With full transparency, we can’t give you that date because we just don’t know at this time.
K&L opened in 1976, long before the internet was a thing. Back then, we would have had far fewer options in a quarantine. If you had come to us referencing a “ready for pickup” email, we could have sold you some gum and a pack of Marlboro Reds, but maybe thought you’d reached your limit on alcohol for the week. Over the years, we’ve kicked out the gum and smokes and developed some tremendous friendships in the process of growing. We treasure that connection with our customers, and it’s been very difficult to put that on pause.
The transition to a curbside- and delivery-only model of business has kept us extremely busy the last few months. We’ve added staff members to keep up with order volume, and have attempted to work our way through the growing pains that have come with this major shift in workload, systems, and social-distancing space requirements. We have faced different challenges at each location, but our team has risen to each one.
Most importantly, we view our staff as family, and our customers as an extended part of that. Our highest priority has been to maintain a safe environment for staff as well as the customers who arrive to pick up orders. At the present time, we don’t know where the virus is going, but we’d prefer to err on the side of caution, particularly given the fact that staffers are rightfully concerned about their own exposure. Since we do have these solid alternative options in place, we’re not ready to subject our team to known (and unknown) risks of opening in-person shopping at the present time.
We look forward to reconnecting with you face-to-face at some point, and hopefully it won’t be too far down the road. As always, we’ll try to post updates and keep you informed about all the amazing wine, beer, and spirits we have coming through our doors. And we love seeing what you’re drinking and hearing from you on social media. Until we can open our doors, we hope that you stay safe, and we thank you so much for your business and support.
– K&L
