WHITESTOWN, Ind. (WTHR) — With the sun finally shining down on Indianapolis, many Hoosiers are eager to be out while still practicing social distancing.
Indianapolis is allowing restaurants to expand outdoor seating in an effort to help them reopen and bring in sales. But this pandemic has been especially hard on small businesses.
Not only have temporary closures hurt sales, but the pandemic itself is causing an increase in costs for many businesses. Outdoor seating for some small restaurants is just one more expense they wouldn’t be able to afford, but that’s why Facility Concepts is offering free outdoor chairs to locally owned independent businesses.
The giveaway started with a phone call.
A restaurant called “looking for some outdoor seating because of the city ordinance that allows them to open outdoors. And they were looking for something quick and very cheap because they were struggling financially,” said the President and CEO of Facility Concepts, Ken Weaver.
Instead of selling them the chairs, Weaver decided to give them away.
He said there’s inventory that they've been sitting on for weeks.
"And we’ll probably be sitting on for quiet some time (due to the economic toll the pandemic has had on clients),” said Weaver.
There are six styles of outdoors chairs that are are being offered and they would normally retail between $100 to $150 dollars each.
“It’s a huge help,” said Heidi Pozsgai who is a part owner of Al’s Pubs and Pizza. “We couldn’t afford to go out and buy these chairs."
Pozsgai is hoping the outdoor seating will also help boost recent sales.
“We’ve been struggling for the last two months and this is an opportunity to boost us up," she said. "We’ve been closed completely until last week when we started carryout."
Furniture manufacturing has been hit by the pandemic.
"A lot of our business goes to public spaces, so we’re equally as hurt and maybe more so before our business goes back. But we just through it was the right thing to do,” said Weaver. "Collectively everybody’s trying to do their part to the economy rolling again."
Facility Concepts manufacturers furniture from raw materials here in Indiana, and they are an international supplier. But they weren’t always this large.
“We started in a two-door garage,” said Weaver. “We certainly appreciate, understand and we’ve had our ups and downs. We can relate to the small independents."
Any businesses interested in free outdoor chairs can reach out to Facility Concepts at 800-915-8890