Pandemic Threatens Rebarts - Page 2

"Rather than having him hanging at our house all the time, Bart put him to work," Becky said with a smile about Tostado, now manager of the company's three installation teams.

When elder daughter, Alexandra, finished college, she became company sales manager. Her boyfriend, Mike Pajarillo, took over the cleaning and repair service for the coverings, and now he has his own business based in Hayward doing just that.

Once their eldest son, Bart Jr., became operations manager, the younger San Diegos started pressing their parents to modernize their marketing and business plans.

"My husband and I are old school," she conceded of their reluctance to embrace social media platforms. "We have a lot of arguments. They say, 'This is what everyone else is doing.'"

One thing they did not seek to change was participation in the Eichler Network, she said, noting their high regard for CA-Modern magazine and the Eichler world it serves.

"Marty Arbunich's magazine has done wonders," Becky said happily of advertising in CA-Modern, adding. "We've tried a lot of magazines, but we've stuck with that one."

What no plan or advertisement could prepare their business for was a pandemic shutting down commerce for three months—or more.

"There's just a trickle of people coming in," Becky said of the slow return to normalcy in June. "Now we're wondering, should we have so many stores?"

Rebarts recently was in the process of considering a move for its Burlingame store to a different location in downtown Burlingame, a development interrupted by the shelter-in-place order. As it stands now, Rebarts has cut their staff of 16 down to six because, Becky says, "That's all we can afford."

The San Diegos have taken care to train their staff about working with masks, social distancing, and sanitation procedures. Now, the business owners are groping with an uncertain future.

"It's crazy to start bringing people [full staff] back now, with nothing happening," Becky frets. "I'm just worried if there is a second wave."

"Things are changing, I guess," the business owner understated. "We're just taking everything day by day."

Rebarts Interiors—glad their doors are open once again: in Burlingame at 1352 Broadway; San Carlos at 990 Industrial Boulevard (Suite 106); Los Altos at 253 State Street; and Menlo Park at 865 Santa Cruz Avenue.