Charlie Wertheim
Sure beats binge watching “Game of Thrones.”
Several local businesses took advantage of the lockdown by scratching some projects off their to-do list.
One business even did work specifically targeted toward coping with COVID-19.
Midland Fitness
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Midland Fitness in Glenwood Springs installed ultraviolet light in its heating and cooling system.
“We put in some UV lights in our [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] system — we’re the only commercial business in Glenwood that’s done that — for killing viruses and bacteria, and all the research that’s coming up is showing that it works for coronavirus,” co-owner Cathy Lee said.
Apparently the results are visible.
“You cut an apple and leave it for 24 hours and it won’t even brown, because [the UV light] kills all bacteria and mold and viruses,” she said.
The air at Midland Fitness should be cleaner long after the novel coronavirus is gone, but while it’s still here, the new system should be encouraging to clients, Lee said.
“What’s nice about it is people’s comfort level is the biggest thing,” she said.
Beerworks
Beerworks in Carbondale finally has that expanded outdoor space the staff has been dreaming about for years.
“We had been talking about doing it for a while now — for the last two summers — but we just never had the time to do it. My landlord came in about a month ago and said, ‘We’re going to do it for you,’” owner Patrice Fuller said.
On one hand COVID provided the time to get the work done.
“COVID allowed us to take advantage of something we’ve wanted to do for a long time,” she said.
On the other hand, the expansion will help the brewery cope with current restrictions due to COVID.
“We close-to-doubled our capacity. I probably have as many tables out here right now as I normally would in the summer, with the social distancing rules in place,” she said.
Yampah Spa
Yampah Spa’s owners decided to perk up its interior.
“We took advantage of [the lockdown] and repainted the whole inside. It’s so hard to paint in here because we’re open all the time. We did some repairs and maintenance that are hard to get to when there are people around all the time,” co-owner Patsy Steele said.
The painting and repairs were already on the Glenwood Springs spa’s agenda.
“We were planning to do them but we would have had to do them piecemeal. This way we could just get it all done at once,” she said.
So far guests have appreciated the new look, Steele said.
“People come in and say, ‘The place looks and feels so fresh and clean,’” she said.
Juicy Lucy’s
The owners of Juicy Lucy’s Steakhouse in Glenwood Springs decided to play it cool during the lockdown.
“We have a Coolerado system. It was designed in Colorado, made for Colorado weather, so it’s kind of a combo air conditioner/swamp cooler, but it wasn’t enough, so we did install [more] air conditioning,” co-owner Cece Zumwinkle said.
In this case, the restaurant would have been closed anyway to get the work done.
“We were going to close in April to have it done and actually that’s about when they did it. We said, ‘As long as we’re closed you can come in and do it anytime,’” she said.
The steakhouse came out of the lockdown cooler as well as cleaner.
“Air conditioning was probably the biggest thing we did aside from a lot of deep cleaning,” she said.