Governor Kim Reynolds visits Butler County

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg stopped at Community Bowl Bar and Grill in Dumont on Tuesday, June 30 to talk with business owner Brandon Barber and Katie Jeffries about how COVID-19 regulations have impacted their business.

Barber and Jeffries gave the Governor a tour of their restaurant, bar and bowling alley, and Reynolds and Gregg en-joyed cheeseburgers before they left.

“The Governor was very nice and down to earth, and was genuinely interested in our story and situation,” Barber said. “I wish we could have had more time to talk about everything.”

The visit was coordinated by Butler-Grundy Development Director Jeff Kolb.

“When the governor’s office reached out to arrange a visit, they wanted to talk with a business that was impacted by COVID. Brandon impressed me with the school kids’ meals they prepared and how they wanted to do something to help the community, so their business was a perfect fit. Especially since they opened the restaurant right before COVID started, so they could easily have thrown in the towel, but they just worked even harder,” said Kolb.

Barber purchased the bowling alley in 2018 and added the restaurant to offer full-service food starting in January. Community Bowl Bar and Grill has grown to employ 12 people, and Barber is continually working to make improvements to the facility. His goal is to offer a good atmosphere, good food, and good service.

Before the COVID-19 pan-demic, the bowling alley was booked solid from open to close on Fridays and Satur-days. Bowling leagues were growing, and there were plenty of parties. A benefit they put on for a local man facing cancer raised almost $35,000 in one night. The bowling alley and restaurant drew not only regu-lars from Dumont but visitors from Ackley, Aplington, Parkersburg, Hampton, and as far away as Waverly and Iowa Falls. People came from Marshalltown just to try the pizza.

Kolb said he had heard someone remark that it’s so cool to see a Main Street in Dumont where you have to fight to get a parking spot.

“The big draw is you can take the whole family out. Mom and dad can have a couple drinks. The kids can bowl. You can eat. You can go to one spot and have a whole night and go home,” said Bar-ber.

As a small-town guy, Bar-ber enjoys talking with the people who come in. And he’s worked hard to make the Community Bowl a success. When he bought the bowling alley, he was there five days a week in addition to working a full-time job 40 hours a week, and operating another business on the side. Sleep and vaca-tions took a back seat.

“This is literally my dream job. I love to cook, love to eat obviously, and the bowling thing was kind of a bonus…” Barber said. “I could be up here working 12 hours, and it just goes right by, and it’s not even a thing. I just absolutely love it.”

It’s a lot of work, but seeing people enjoy their time at the Community Bowl makes all the work worthwhile.

The COVID-19 pandemic, Barber told the governor, has been rough all around, but so far, he’s keeping the business afloat, with the help of a grant for small businesses.

Barber’s fear is that if things aren’t back to normal by October, his business may not make it through next summer. They have already lost thousands of dollars of revenue.

Keeping the bowling alley open is important not only for himself, but for his employees who are depending on paychecks, and it’s important for the whole town.

When schools closed, Community Bowl started offering free meals for students in Dumont.

“We have three kids, and we aren’t part of the wealthy crowd, so we don’t have a lot of extra…” Barber said. “So for part of the year, we depend on those [school] meals to cut our grocery bill at home a little bit. Now with two months added to that grocery bill, we knew that was a lot for other people too, so we started doing free kids meals. We just decided that was a good thing to do.”

People stepped in to donate to keep the program going into June, and Community Bowl served over 700 free meals to kids, offering chicken nuggets, hot dogs, pasta and the like. Aredale Mayor Rodney McKinney came down every day to pick up five to seven meals for the kids in Aredale.

Reynolds asked if the Community Bowl had very many customers take advantage of take-out options in general. They did.

“We were hearing that. A lot of restaurants, I think, said the community really supported them,” said Reynolds. Barber said he thinks 25 percent of the to-go orders were more of a donation of support to make sure the restaurant stayed open.

“Everybody likes having us here… The town is busy now,” Barber said.

Barber said Community Bowl has taken a cautious approach to reopening. While it’s now legal to offer a salad bar or buffet, that’s not something they’re offering at this point.

“If somebody comes in here and coughs, and we have to throw all that away, we don’t have room to do that,” Barber said.

If people aren’t comfortable with coming in to eat or pick up orders, staff will bring food out curbside.

“Every business owner that we’ve talked to, they are being very thoughtful, and they’re doing it in a safe and responsible manner…” Reynolds said. “These are your patrons and customers and a lot of times it’s like family relationships, so you’re not going to do anything that’s going to affect them or your employees. You’re just not.”

There are still challenges that are faced, as restaurants, bars and bowling alleys are under different rules. According to Barber, while the restaurant is open, the bowling alley isn’t open yet because keeping everything sanitized would be difficult, and with social distancing precautions, they would only be able to open three lanes.

He is working on making modifications to the bar to ensure it will be able to reopen this fall. And going forward, he anticipates the ratio of take-out orders will continue to be high.

“I think once we go back to normal, we’re still going to have a lot more take-out stuff, which is going to change how we do everything,” Barber said. “We had two months of trying to figure out the best way to do things, and now we have figured out a new way to do things, and now we’re going back to a new way to do things.”

“That pretty much sums up 2020,” Reynolds said.

But the Community Bowl is focused on growth and improvement, and Barber can’t wait to see what the next five years will hold. Failure is not an option. He fully intends to be there for his customers.

“My money is on that,” Reynolds said. “You have a positive attitude; I love that.” Reynolds posted on Twitter that she was impressed with Brandon and Katie’s story, passion and work ethic, and she thanked them for having her at the Community Bowl Bar and Grill.

The governor’s visit to Community Bowl in Dumont came after visiting Pine Lake Corn Processors near Cleves where she signed Senate File 2403, legislation designed to lower the cost of E-15 and higher blends of renewable fuels in Iowa by changing how the state taxes higher-blend biofuels.

Reynolds also made a stop at Family Traditions Meat in Ackley. National and international news sources took up that story when the car carry-ing Governor Reynolds hit Black Lives Matter protestor Jaylen Cavil in Ackley. Cavil was not injured during the incident, but alleged that the driver of the vehicle hit him intentionally.

According to a statement from Iowa State Patrol Public Information Officer Sgt. Alex Dinkla, “The Iowa State Patrol investigated an incident that occurred near Ackley, Iowa, involving a demonstrator and a state-owned vehicle transport-ing Governor Reynolds. The vehicle was operated by a member of the Iowa State Patrol. As the vehicle started to leave a scheduled stop and enter the roadway, a demonstrator approached which caused the Governor’s vehicle to slow. The demonstrator stopped short and to the side of the vehicle. As the vehicle began to turn away from the protestor and onto the road-way, the demonstrator intentionally stepped in front of the slowly moving vehicle. The demonstrator had little to no physical reaction to any con-tact he created, and the vehicle then entered the roadway. Iowa State Troopers on scene made contact with the demonstrator and advised him to discontinue his efforts to block traffic. The demonstrator did not appear to suffer any injury, made no request for medical attention, and immediately began shouting obscenities at the responding personnel. The demonstrator and his group then proceeded to block members of the Iowa State Patrol from leaving the area.”

From Ackley, the governor proceeded to visit the Floyd County Department of Public Health and Emergency Management Agency before her Butler County stop at Community Bowl in Dumont.

The final stop in her tour after leaving Community Bowl was at the Northeast Iowa Food Bank in Waterloo.