COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
BUSINESS NEWS
MARCH 2022 • 9
Continued from Page 8
in the front yard, eyes glowing
with a cigar between its teeth.
Lee said a customer was driv-
ing from Astoria that day to pick
it up.
A surprising positive element
of the pandemic, Lee said, was
time. He9s been able to condense
ove years of home improvement
projects into one, and the couple
has been making more art.
Lee said he felt lucky to have
bought the property before hous-
ing prices rose and that they
didn9t have to deal with any sub-
stantial overhead costs when the
pandemic hit.
<It sucks, life9s diferent,=
Yvonne Lee said. <But we9re
pretty optimistic and easygoing.
We roll with the punches.=
<If we had overhead, I can9t
even imagine,= Danny Lee
added.
‘We’re still
struggling, but we’ll
get through it’
Matt and Meghan Ruona are the owners of Four Paws on the Beach with locations in Cannon Beach and Manzanita.
Two years ago, when the pan-
demic hit, Ronda Jean Vivle-
more was deciding whether to
buy A Whisper in Time Photog-
raphy from its previous owners
in Seaside.
<I was like, do I really want to
sign this paperwork? Because I
was oguring that something seri-
ous was going to happen with the
whole pandemic. And I decided
to go along with it,= she said.
After a few closures toward
the beginning, business is going
steadier now. Customers, often
from out of town, oll up the
weekend9s appointment sched-
ule to don corsets, cowboy and
pirate hats and sailor outots for
old-fashioned souvenir photos.
She said she9s happy she
signed the papers.
<I mean, we9re still strug-
gling, but we9ll get through it,=
she said.
Vivlemore said she expects
things to pick up this summer
during the peak tourism season.
<I think things are coming
around and people are starting to
get back to work and going out
and about,= she said. <I think the
people who are still in business
are going to turn around, and will
stay for another year.=
A surge of customers
Meghan and Matt Ruona,
owners of Four Paws on the
Beach in Manzanita, opened a
second location in Cannon Beach
in January 2020.
Though pet stores were con-
sidered essential businesses, they
opted to close the new location
for several weeks at the start of
the pandemic and focus on their
Manzanita location, which they
bought from its previous owners
in 2015.
When they reopened, Matt
Ruona said it felt like <summer
on steroids= for a month and
a half, with an unprecedented
amount of customers coming in.
<It9s really felt like people had
kind of rediscovered the Oregon
Coast as a destination when there
was no nying to Europe or going
to the East Coast,= he said. <It
kind of felt like everyone from
Idaho to California went, 8Well,
where can we get in the car and
go to that9s fun and exciting?9=
The pandemic also brought a
new, common occurrence: four-
month-old puppies.
<Almost every day, if not sev-
eral times a week. You have folks
coming in with a four-month-old
puppy. Having a four-month-
old puppy is just the refrain that
I hear over and over again,= he
said.
<COVID adoptions went up,=
Meghan Ruona said.
He said that during the surge
in visitors last summer people
seemed happy to go shopping
while on vacation, even buying
coats for each one of their dogs.
Matt Ruona said he hopes
that festivals like the animal res-
cue fundraiser <Muttzanita= can
return. He noted how popular
Cannon Beach9s annual Corgi
Beach Day has been for pet
owners.
The couple said that com-
munity support has made a sig-
niocant impact on their business
during the pandemic. Matt Ruona
said many customers went out of
their way to shop locally.
<We didn9t know what to
expect. We were new to retail
and owning our own business,
and so to see that outpouring of
support has been tremendous and
just so heartwarming. We are just
so grateful,= he said.