ATLANTA — As millions are filing for unemployment, a local brewing company is bringing furloughed employees back to work, thanks to “to-go” beer sales.
Jeff Heck, CEO of Monday Night Brewing, says a community of customers helped make it happen.
“We’ve had support with our 'to-go' program, like, way beyond we ever could imagine," he told 11Alive.
Heck said the brewery originally had to furlough about 16 employees, 15 of whom were full-time.
"Thanks to the support we’ve gotten from the community in the last couple of days, we’ve been able to bring back four of those folks back on to our payroll,” Heck said.
He added that it is his hope to be able to bring more employees back, but he doesn’t want employment to be temporary.
“The last thing we want to do is bring people back and tell them a few weeks later that they don’t have a job again,” Heck said. “We want to make sure as bring people back that we’re able to keep theme around.”
Another thing that Monday Night Brewing is doing during the COVID-19 outbreak is giving full tips to employees. Twenty-five percent of “to-go” sales are also going to furloughed employees.
“That’s been huge," Heck said. "It’s really helped our people that weren’t expecting to get a paycheck, to have a paycheck."
“Emotional whiplash” is what Heck is calling the ups and downs of being a business owner during a global pandemic.
“One day you feel like things are going great. Another day things are hard, and you have to have a tough conversation with people, but we’ve been encouraged by the support we’ve gotten from our community," he said.
If you would like to support the team at Monday Night Brewing, check out their website here.
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