After about a month of COVID-19, I went back into the shop myself and I was able to self-quarantine to rebuild the business from the inside out. Because of the virus, I changed everything within the studio to be touchless and sensor-driven. I took the laundry list of CDC and state recommendations for operations, and I applied it within the shop. Our landlord was also very gracious to help us with a little bit of a rent concession, which was really nice.
When the day came that we were allowed to reopen, which was July 8 because we were phase three, we were ready to rock out and operate safely. We took precautionary measures and made sure that we changed the operations to half-staffed, so we had only three artists operating at a time, about 15-feet apart.
I'm very thankful for all of our clients and everybody who contributes to our business, and we're honored to tattoo and pierce them.
I think that our biggest mistake was being too excited to open. We didn't rush the process, but when it came to communicating to our clients, there were no definitive dates at first — the major and governor would say it was this or that day — so we kept rescheduling and rebooking multiple times.
The clients were more eager to come get tattoos than the artists were to come back to work, to be honest. People truly wanted to feel human again, and they wanted that human interaction.
