LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- March 2020 is a month Chuck Krill and his brother Joe will never forget.Â
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ordered bars and restaurants shut down to in-person dining. And since then, the owners of Cravings in the PNC Bank Building said there's been plenty of room to sit at their once-bustling restaurant that's been downtown for 24 years.
"It was horrible for a while," Chuck Krill said. "It's just real bad now."
Those restrictions later loosened, but coming back is a tall order. The Humana building downtown is missing thousands of workers, people who used to make hundreds of orders a day at Cravings.
"Our greatest fear is that businesses will let everyone work from home," Chuck Krill said. "They will figure out how to do it less expensive.
"It will change the outlook of downtown Louisville permanently, in my eyes."
People enter the Cravings restaurant in the PNC Bank building in downtown Louisville, Ky.Â
Down on Main Street, Heine Brothers is still closed, but the bourbon still flows at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience. You can take tours, but fewer are offered. And six people, not 20, are allowed on each tour. There's not nearly as much foot traffic browsing and buying, either.Â
"On a normal busy day, we would easily see 300 people in here, not including our tour guests," said, Ashley Cuyjet, operations manager at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience.
Now, maybe 60 stop by on an average day.
People pose for a photo at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience in downtown Louisville, Ky.Â
The bourbon trail is waiting to see big conventions and tourism return. But those mom and pop shops say they need the downtown workforce to come back.
"My thinking is we have to have people back in their seats in their offices working every day," Chuck Krill said.
Most downtown business owners polled in the last few weeks say business is running at about 20-30% of what it was before the pandemic and civil unrest.
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