Beverly's Lucky Dog Thrown A Bone With Eased Restrictions

BEVERLY, MA – The neighborhood haunt has long been not only a place where people stop by for a pint or a meal, but it was also a place where the residents of a neighborhood or city saw familiar faces, laughed at oft-repeated jokes and shared the comfort of a household or family in close quarters for hours at a time with people who were not technically either.

Last March, the intimate nature of the neighborhood haunt became the very atmosphere health departments feared most for the spread of the coronavirus at the onset of the pandemic.

While all non-essential businesses were ordered closed for at least three weeks starting on March 16, 2020, some were slower to reopen than others. Many restaurants were able to make a go of it through takeout meals until allowed to reopen outdoor dining, while spacious chain restaurants got through being able to socially distance those comfortable with indoor dining despite much-reduced capacity.

But the neighborhood haunts – with their nooks, crannies, awkward curves and intentionally cramped spaces – were either limited to a handful of patrons or forced to remain closed entirely.

The "families" that saw each other, in some cases, more at those local watering holes than some of them saw their actual families broke apart without warning.

In Beverly, however, the Lucky Dog pub and restaurant family came together with a GoFundMe page to help support the "Five-Star Dive Bar" that raised more than $16,000 for owners Russell Sundberg and Matthew Willis to keep the place and their staff afloat.

"We've been through hard times before, as a business, and they rose up and supported us without hesitation," Sundberg told Patch. "This bar is more than employment for a few people and it's more than the food on my family's table. It's a part of so many lives.

"It's hard to put into words really. The GoFundMe speaks volumes to the character of our clientele. It's their bar as much as ours."

The Lucky Dog was able to reopen this summer following all the restaurant protocols of 6-foot distancing and with plastic dividers draped around the bar. Sundberg said despite the strains the place was "pushing through" with all staff returning and pooling tips weekly between each other to make sure everyone got their share.

As North Shore restaurants began to go into "hibernation" amid cooling temperatures and rising virus cases late in the fall, the Lucky Dog intended to push through further for the benefit of the staff and those customers who remained loyal to their home away from home.

"Our regulars are like family to us," Sundberg said.

The bar kept pushing through the 9:30 p.m. business curfew Gov. Charlie Baker put in November and even held an early New Year’s Eve countdown about three hours before the end of 2020 after additional restrictions pushed restaurants down to 25 percent capacity on Dec. 26.

But by the next week, the Lucky Dog began selling off its inventory in preparation for what owners thought might be an extended hiatus.

"The 25 percent was the final straw," Sundberg said. "The amount being spent to support the overhead with the new restriction would've bled us dry by sometime this spring."

While the state offered relief to small businesses affected by the curfews and capacity reductions, most establishments need some type of constant flow of revenue and supply to avoid the risk of permanent closure, which Baker acknowledged was behind his decision against completely shutting down indoor dining statewide in December.

The 25 capacity limit was extended twice, but the restaurant industry got a mostly unexpected jolt of energy when the business curfew was lifted on Jan. 21. Two weeks later, the capacity limits were eased to 40 percent as well with virus infections and hospitalizations dropping dramatically following a holiday surge.

On Monday, the Lucky Dog reopened.

"The curfew being lifted and the increase on capacity is what allowed us to operate again," Sundberg said. "We still lose money every week, but it's not as bad and can get us through now."

For the second time, Sundberg said the entire staff returned.

"So many factors could affect sales at the drop of a hat," he said. "But we all kept things moving forward. We added items to our kitchen and offered profit-sharing (to employees) with the food sales. It's a good way to keep a few extra bucks in the till for everyone."

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Like many neighborhood haunts, the Lucky Dog doesn't look or even feel quite the same as it did before the onset of the pandemic. Many similar spots across the North Shore and the state remain shuttered with traditional bars that don't serve food not allowed to up until Phase 4 of the state's reopening plan — which was to come when there was a vaccine or working therapy for the virus.

That may all come too late for the neighborhood haunts that could not hang on through one entire year.

But restrictions easing amid lower virus rates, and the arrival of vaccines, have allowed some neighborhood haunts like the Lucky Dog to bring back the regulars who stood by it when times were toughest.

With renewed hopes for more traditional family reunions in the not-so-dramatically-distant future.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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