IRMO, S.C. — Avoiding the cold weather and COVID are two things everyone can get behind, and Craft and Draft is brewing up a solution for their customers.
Owner Kellan Monroe says they're setting up a more COVID-friendly and rain resistant outdoor area for their customers.
For all of 15 months, that area was temporary.
"A 20 by 20 tent gave us basically two thirds again as much room as we had in the first place, so it really made it where we were able to keep operations at a level that we were sort of at the same level of operation we had been before COVID," Monroe said.
That tent, a quick fix they thought at the time, was at their Devine Street location.
"We came up with quick fixes of how we were going to operate and keep people as safe as you could and make people as comfortable as you could so they trusted you to come out and keep you in business basically," Monroe said.
Now, they're making a permanent fix: A real roof.
"Month over month over the time we had it, it probably costed us a quarter of what we're putting into our new facility but again it's permanent versus temporary," Monroe said.
The roof was water tightened Wednesday, just in time for the rain on Thursday. New tables, lights, TVs and heaters will be arriving in the next few weeks.
This will allow enough permanent space for their business to survive.
Luckily, the Irmo location already has an outside awning, but they're looking to add heaters there, as well.
"We'll call it the first weather of winter, where you get that cold rainy day where it never warms up," Monroe said. "We're glad that we can have no water landing on your head and you're not having to walk in and out of a building where you're having to walk into the rain to get under a tent and back. Now, we're basically covered the whole way and the same here in Irmo, where you can just walk out of the front door and under the awning and you're still okay," Monroe said.