The Day the Music Stopped in Seattle

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- The One Year, One Neighborhood series follows small businesses in the Pike/Pine corridor in Seattle, the first coronavirus hot spot in the U.S., to get a sense of what cities will look like as they reopen.

Steven Severin is a co-owner of Neumos, one of Seattle’s most popular independent music venues, as well as its sister businesses, Barboza and the Runaway. He separately co-owns a bar that opened last year called Life on Mars. He says the hardest part of the Covid crisis, by far, has been furloughing more than 100 employees. “It’s such a cliché, but when you own a small business, that’s it, that’s your life,” he says. “There are probably times that I’d rather lose an arm than lose one of my businesses.” He’s also worried about Seattle losing its music scene. “It’s our civic brand,” he says. “You come to the airport, and there’s music everywhere. Eddie Vedder is telling you, ‘Don’t park your car in the load-unload zone.’”

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