North Bay small businesses dream big, survive the pandemic with local lender help

Wicked Slush owner Amy Covin got her pioneering spirit from her native Boston.

Covin, 57, tapped into her New England roots three years ago when she opened the extraordinary icy dessert outlet in Healdsburg where the historic Trowbridge Canoe Rental business was located on Healdsburg Avenue. She recalled going out on the streets of Boston with her father on Sundays at age 8 to enjoy a “slush.” In New York and Philadelphia, it’s called Italian Ice and Water Ice, respectively.

“It’s not shaved ice, not a Slurpee and not an Icee with syrup poured over it,” Covin told the Business Journal, while discussing her plans for expansion.

She owes much of her success to her own survival instincts and the helpfulness of her Santa Rosa community bank, which has honed small business lending. Exchange Bank responded to a paperwork blizzard of applications prompted by the Paycheck Protection Program managed through the U.S. Small Business Administration. Covin was among the applicants.

While enduring the shutdowns spurred on by the COVID-19 crisis, the former accountant with free-market business acumen has learned to adapt.

“At first, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to survive it, but we’ve had the best season ever,” she said.

Covin has created a new product delivery service from her building’s deck for customers not wanting to give up on their icy treats. She has also utilized her parking lot for a “slush garden.” Think beer garden for sugar lovers. A drive-thru was established.

“I’m fairly aggressive in pivoting. People who know me know that I have great big balls — slush balls,” she quipped. “If I’m going to go out, I’m going out with guns blazing. It would be a shame to fold. I think (businesses) just gotta look around and see how to deliver (their products). In business, you’re there to make (your customers’) lives better.”

Covin also knows part of owning a business means taking care of the people who take care of the community. The dessert-food queen figured she’s donated about $8,000 worth of free treats to health care workers in April.

She cited Boston’s favorite show “Cheers” in explaining community connection.

“When Norm comes in, doesn’t everybody wanna feel that way?” she said.

Now the business model has launched “pop-up” locations to test markets for franchising ventures — with places such as Laguna Niguel, Campbell and Petaluma in the running.

Much goes into expanding the operation. This includes the purchase of the dessert’s ingredients and refrigerators as well as the rights to creamy, sweet food recipes to accompany the meatball subs, nachos, Boston hot dogs, clam chowder and soft serve.

Her sweet delights have extended their reach and form to other eateries — one on the Sonoma Square. The Girl and the Fig restaurant is serving up Wicked Slushes and “Slushtails” — a cross between the cold, sugary treat and a cocktail. Owner Sondra Bernstein said the alcohol-infused delight has been quite popular with her “Grab n’ Go” offering. The Girl and the Fig is due to open to indoor and outdoor dining next week.

“It’s been great and fun to see the sidewalk all set up,” Bernstein said of her popular 23-year-old restaurant.

She commends her friend Covin for reinventing herself in a big way.

With all her ambition, Covin insists she’s relied heavily on Exchange Bank — which arranged a PPP loan to maintain salaries for her employees, an economic injury disaster loan among other small-business boosts amounting to about $700,000 to carry out her grand plans.

Money to climb higher

Covin is in good company in Sonoma County with wanting to give her all to the business.

Gordon Cooley of the Vertex Climbing Center in Santa Rosa relates to the wanting to expand amid health and subsequent economic crises. He also knows about questioning a business survival, having returned to a Coffey Park building left standing following the devastating Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County in October 2017.

“The last three years have had tremendous highs and tremendous lows,” he said.

But the 35-year-old fitness businessman knows how to adjust to a changing business climate. He also turned to Exchange Bank for a $3.5 million loan to fund his expansion. He’s working on a new location project, branching out from his 6,500-square-foot climbing gym on Coffey Lane into a grand-scale, 23,000-square-foot facility in a warehouse building at 673 Sebastopol Road. He hopes to provide all the fitness and climbing offerings of his other locations, and then some. After the initial build out, he plans to install a café, a room for gatherings and youth climbing zone with all modern equipment.

Like Covin, Cooley is a mover and a shaker. The Sonoma State graduate who majored in kinesiology bought the gym in 2013 with 300 members after working there as a personal trainer.

“It put me through college,” he said.

Since then, the gym has turned into a complete center, with 20 rope stations on 30-foot walls and rooms for fitness classes, yoga and pilates. His membership has quadrupled. He hopes all will return for his July 1 re-opening of his current climbing center.

Meanwhile, the place has undergone a repainting and stripping down of the climbing walls by removing all handholds and using a power washer to sanitize.

“Everything will be brand new,” he said, further singling out Exchange Bank for helping with his business survival.

“My friends at Exchange Bank were incredibly helpful in putting everything together,” he said.

A bank with the heart to keep business pumping

Exchange Bank Vice President and Business Development Officer Maryanne Harris credits both entrepreneurs for sticking with it.

Of Covin she said: “She’s knocked it out of the park in Healdsburg. We keep helping her get to the next level.”

Beyond securing business ventures loans, Exchange Bank has processed more than 1,600 PPP applications to keep local business thriving, it noted during its quarterly earnings report in April.

To further survive these turbulent times, Harris has noticed one recent trend in a possible shift from retail to a manufacturing sector, as the economy quivers from the coronavirus outbreak has led to an unprecedented economic challenge.

“We’ve all had a lot of time to think, to think outside the box,” she said. “I think a lot of these businesses with commercial properties are going to figure out they don’t need the space and will want to reinvent themselves.”

She’s also witnessed a flight of migrants from other, busier areas of the San Francisco Bay Area descending on the Wine Country for better living since many may work remotely.

Other news from the PPP front:

Aside from other small business lending, Bank of America told the Business Journal in its outreach that the financial institution has funded nearly 2,000 PPP loans for North Bay businesses worth $160 million with the average amount being $83,000. Of all these loans, 81% were earmarked to assist local companies with fewer than 10 employees.

The SBA and U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on June 12 it has posted a revised, borrower-friendly PPP loan-forgiveness application.

Following a barrage of criticism upon releasing the program spun out of federal government’s COVID-19 stimulus plans, the application requires fewer calculations and less documentation from eligible borrowers.