Small business owners all over the world have suffered financially due to the coronavirus pandemic. Former Red Sox infielder Kevin Youkilis is no exception.
Youkilis has owned Loma Brewing Company in Los Gatos, California since 2016, two years after he retired from baseball. Since the COVID-19 crisis caused restaurants and breweries to close in mid-March, Loma has seen its revenue drop 80%.
“It has definitely been a tough time for everyone,” Youkilis recently told KPIX in San Francisco. “Loma Brewing Company... we’re doing okay. We’ve been helped out by the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans. We’ve been selling a lot of canned beer. Selling crowlers and growlers, but we’re about down 80% of what we usually do. It has been a tough road, but we have a lot of great people that have a lot of tenacity and they’re helping out and doing their part to help keep Loma Brewing Company afloat in these tough times.”
Youkilis said his beer sales have been limited in recent months, in part because the brewery is trying to use hops it has in house instead of ordering more expensive hops from outside distributors. That has caused Loma to stop selling perhaps its most famous beer, “The Greek God of Hops," which is a riff on Youkilis’ nickname, “The Greek God of Walks.”
“We kind of went off just ordering all the hops we have in house and trying to brew stuff, not trying to put as much money out into buying new stuff,” he said. “We’ve been brewing stuff with the hops we have in house and trying to go through those as much as possible without spending too much money.”
Though he’s more than a half-decade removed from playing, Youkilis has stayed up to date on the ongoing negotiations between Major League Baseball and the players’ union about getting the season started. Baseball has made little progress toward resuming its season since the pandemic suspended spring training in mid-March.
Citing health and safety concerns, Youkilis said he’s not optimistic about baseball being played in 2020.
“The owners don’t open up their books, ever,” he told KPIX. “That’s one of those things that’s really hard for players. It’s kind of a guessing game. If the owners opened up their books, I think people would be more empathetic and understanding in certain situations. It’s a very complex situation. There are so many moving parts. You just hope that the Players Association and the owners will do what’s right.
“The fans of baseball are usually the ones that get hurt,” he added. “They’re also usually the ones that provide for both the owners and the players. You’ve got to be very careful when you’re doing this stuff because it’s the people that come to the games and the people that watch are the ones that pay your salaries and your revenues to your ballclub.”
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