NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Like many others, the North Little Rock business 'Me and McGee Market' is facing challenging times while trying to operate during the pandemic.
The hardest part is dealing with some customer responses to the changes.
“We’re a family-owned outdoor grocery store so it functions like a farmers market,” Me and McGee Market Partner Logan Duvall said.
He said they’ve made tough decisions since the start of the pandemic like making masks required.
“My son has been battling cancer over the last year, so we were one of the first that was; this is non-negotiable,” Duvall said.
Working in harsh conditions lead them to make more changes to the way they operate.
“Part of the decision to close Tuesday’s is these. It’s the masks. So we’re out here in the heat all day every day and if there’s a customer. We’re honestly tired. We’re hot, we’re tired, we need some time off,” Duvall said.
The challenge they didn’t expect, was attitudes some customers had when they drove past the ‘closed’ sign on Tuesday.
On their Facebook, they shared how the incidents were disheartening in an already difficult time.
“People were getting so upset because we were out here and working, I mean there’s still lots of stuff to do. But, people would get out and we’d say ‘hey we’ll be open in the morning. And they’d just be really upset that we were outside and not going to open special for them,” Duvall said.
Through it all, they’re remaining positive and focusing on the love and support that’s poured in on their page.
“Had so many come up and just to say, ‘we came out especially today just to give you support from that post,’ and it means the world,” Duvall said.
Now, they’re asking customers for one simple favor: to show kindness to those keeping businesses running.
“There’s a lot of people that are stressed, you know. The business owners that need to make more money that sales are down, they’re trying to deal with this the best they can. A lot of people don’t have a place they feel like they can go that’s safe and they’re stressed. We just need to be kind to each other,” Duvall said.
They’ll continue working to give customers everything they’ve got, even if it means things will be a little different.
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