BCBusiness

takeout. We kept Savio closed for about a week, and we turned La Tana into a grocery store, which is what a lot of people did with their spaces. And we saw a lot of suc- cess in the areas we committed to: online grocery, delivery, baskets, meal prep, Pepino's takeout. Then we did Savio takeout and the whole rigamarole. I know there are a lot of negative con- notations with COVID, but it was an oppor- tunity to reset and grow as a company and as a leader. And I think the government also was struggling to figure out what was next. We saw that all throughout COVID: government pivoting and being resilient. If the government didn't come through with the aid packages that they came through with, the wage subsidies, the rent subsi- dies, CERB, we all would be toast. Toast. There would be no industry. They had their own challenges... but we were all forced to become a lot more resilient. Some survived and some didn't. Between working our tails off to cre- ate revenue and commerce, and pivoting, so to speak, combined with the aid pack- ages from the government, we did well. We recovered revenue, we paid our bills, we paid our staff and we were able to hire people and bring back staff. It was great. We did the best we could have, given the circumstances. Honestly. We all needed to have courage that day, and every day throughout the pandemic. IT WAS ABOUT TWO OR THREE DAYS before the first lockdown occurred—March 2020—and we caught wind of COVID in the restaurants. It was starting to be talked about in the media and there were whispers of a lock- down on the horizon. I personally thought there was no way this could ever happen. Are you kidding me? But, sure enough, the days crept closer and we got word that the lockdown was impending. People were starting to get a little freaked out and we had to—or at least we felt we had to—make the proactive deci- sion to shut down the businesses before the actual lockdown occurred. By no means do we ever want to put our staff, our associ- ates, in harm's way of anything. We laid off over 100 associates in one fell swoop. And that's tough—I mean, let- ting go of one associate is difficult; it's a failure in some regard. But laying off your entire staff, having to zoom out and wonder what you're doing? It was a scary time, it was challenging. I went from restaurant to restaurant— Pepino's, Savio, La Tana—and spoke to the staff, personally, and explained the situation. I think they valued that at the time—the personal communication. We got hustling on records of employment for people so they could apply for employment insurance and whatnot. We shut down the restaurants for a very brief period of time. And then we opened up Pepino's only a couple of days later with We all needed to have confidence, we all needed to be creative and dynamic. It taught me a lot about myself as an individual, and I was really proud of the people that I was surrounded with. As much as it was the hardest day of my career, it was also one of the more opportunistic days of my career. It gave me a new threshold of what I was able to deal with; I think that's called resiliency. It had very positive effects on me as a leader. I didn't lie down—I got up, and I was ferocious. And so was my team. Challenges and difficult moments in life often lead to higher results. I mean, there are times in life, as I'm sure you know, where you get knocked down and you think: damn it, how am I going to get back up? You don't have a choice—you have to get back up. And that's just my mentality, whether it's personal or business. This interview has been edited and condensed. 98 P a ul G r u n b e r g : H a k a n B u r c u o g lu ; t o a s t : i S t o c k / D i a n e D i e d e r i c h B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 24 W orst Day o n t he Jo b RECIPE FOR DISASTER When COVID hit Vancouver, Paul Grunberg, co-owner of the Banda Volpi hospitality group, had three restaurants to his name: Caffè la Tana, Osteria Savio Volpe and Pepino's Spaghetti House. As fear spread around the world, the restaurateur made the strategic decision to lay off 95 percent of his staff and close his businesses. Looking back, Grunberg spills the tea on what led to that decision, how it panned out and what the experience taught him as a leader and business owner. —As told to Rushmila Rahman

• Cover