Staffer Margaret Milano on the first Friday of the campaign.
Paul Mayer, whose Cafe Nine nightclub faces an uncertain post-Covid-19 future, said the suggestion for a virtual tip jar for his employees came from “out of the blue.”
“Less than a week after we’d closed the doors, someone sent me a message on Instagram,” he said. The sender was using a pseudonym. “She asked me if I knew of any virtual tip jars in the area or if I’d set one up for my employees.” Mayer thought it was a “fantastic idea.” Three weeks in and thousands of dollars later, he said, “we’re all very humbled. The staff can’t believe it.”
Mayer set up the first iteration of the virtual tip jar for his employees in the last full week of March. Among bartenders, waitresses, and people running sound and the door, Cafe Nine has 15 staff in total. On March 27, “I was able to give everyone $150,” Mayer said. He continued to put out the word through social media. On April 3 — the end of the second week — enough money had come out of the fund for Mayer to give each of his employees $160.
Paul Bass Photo
That afternoon, Mayer said, “I realized I hadn’t even used Cafe Nine’s email list yet.” So at 5:36 p.m., Mayer sent an email.
“Hello Music Lovers,” it began. “We hope everyone is staying safe and all your loved ones are well. These are certainly scary and trying times for all of us.”
Mayer explained that his staff was on unemployment. “This is going to be a struggle for all of us,” he wrote, “but it will be especially hard for service industry folks like our staff, whose majority of income comes from the always generous tips of our amazing music loving patrons.
“If you are having a drink at home while practicing social distancing and if you have the means, we ask that you please consider leaving a tip for our Cafe Nine employees in their virtual ‘tip jar.’ All tips will be equally distributed between our bar staff, sound engineers, security and maintenance staff while they are out of work to support the health of our community. Thank you in advance for your support and we will see you all soon.”
At the bottom of the email, he provided a link to the virtual tip jar’s GoFundMe page.
Within a couple of hours, Mayer said, there was over $3,000 in the virtual tip jar. As of Monday morning, it had $5,764 in it.
“The customers have been tremendous,” Mayer said. “I’ve gotten donations from some prominent musicians who have played here” as well, he said. But he’s mostly feeling the support from “the community — people are donating what they can. I’m very grateful.”
Laying Low
Paul Mayer Photo
Mayer with Cyril Jordan of the Flaming Groovies.
Right now, Mayer is sanguine about Cafe Nine’s survival through its closure. He has a painting business in addition to running Cafe Nine, and so far, he has been able to foot the bill for the club’s rent and utilities, though “if it goes more than two months it will start to get difficult,” he said. He discovered that his insurance policy, which covered costs for certain business losses, had clauses in the fine print that made exceptions for viruses and pandemics.
“When you’re a business of this size, you’re looking for liability expenses for customers,” he said. “You’re never expecting a pandemic to arrive.”
He has applied for emergency loans through his bank and from the state, which he said has been “helpful” in navigating keeping up with his liquor license while no income is coming in. He has also applied for help through the federal payroll protection program, which, if it comes through, will help. But he unsure when that support will arrive. “I just wish there could be some kind of organized response from the top down,” he said.
For now, Mayer said, “I’m just going to lay low and keep the bills paid.”
Mostly he remains concerned for his employees. He has owned Cafe Nine for 16 years, and “a lot of the staff have been there since I bought the place.” He recalled the weekend of March 14, when the big mental switch came for him in balancing his desire to keep Cafe Nine open, and keep his staff employed, and the need to close for public safety.
“I started feeling it that Saturday,” Mayer said. “It was supposed to be the weekend of the parade. People were out on Saturday and they were in a party mood. The afternoon was busy and I got this weird feeling in my stomach, like, ‘I don’t want to do this. Look at all these people.’”
“Sunday morning I had a meeting with everyone. I was taking the temperature of the water,” he said. “At that point, everybody felt good. Everyone was comfortable. We were going to try to stay open as a neighborhood bar. It was very uncertain, but we wanted to keep going. The meeting was at 11 o’clock.
But that afternoon, with government-mandated closures all but certain and his own unease growing, “by 6 o’clock I texted everyone and said, ‘You know what? We’re going to take the next two weeks and shut down. We got to do our part.’ And then everything shut down.”
“We Will Exist”
Paul Mayer Photos
So Mayer has kept Cafe Nine’s doors locked since mid-March — except now, on Friday mornings, when he disperses tips. He puts envelopes out for each of his employees on a table by the door. He practices good social distancing and stands at the corner of the bar, “underneath Debbie Harry and Joey Ramone,” Mayer said.
“We talk about what’s going on. I make sure everybody’s OK. Everybody seems to be in good spirits so far,” he said. “It keeps the community connected.”
Mayer will keep the virtual tip jar open on GoFundMe for as long as it keeps working. And he’s already thinking about reopening Cafe Nine, whenever in the uncertain future that happens to be. Touring musicians and their agents are in limbo, unsure when to book shows. “I still have some shows that I have to add to the website,” Mayer said. “Some of them are cool shows and bigger shows, but it’s anticlimactic to put them out now in the middle of this uncertainty.”
“Hopefully we’ll get back to this soon, and get back to whatever the new normal establishes itself to be, and we’ll go from there,” Mayer said. “We will exist. I don’t know if we’ll come out of the gate seven days a week. It’ll take a lot to get it back to the same level.” But, he said, “everything will come together. We’ll make some music again in a tiny little bar, and everyone will have fun.”
To contribute to Cafe Nine’s virtual tip jar for its employees, visit its GoFundMe page.
Frank Critelli on the first Friday of the campaign.