BENDT & the
Covid-19 Pandemic

Timeline of Covid-19 related events at BENDT

February 2020:

BENDT begins struggling to procure hand sanitizer for tours, guests and staff. We begin purchasing small quantities of isopropyl alcohol to make the product for personal use within our team. Distillery guests begin asking if they can have or purchase the hand cleaner that our team is using.

March 11, 2020:
Hand sanitizer is no longer available on the market. We discuss internally how we can help get a hand cleaner into the community immediately. It is decided that we will use a by-product of the distillation product, purchase small bottles and donate as many as we can make to individuals as of the following day.

March 14, 2020 - the last day that our tasting hall is open to the public:
We estimate that by this point, we’d given away ~4000 individual size bottles (between 2 - 8 oz bottles) to the general public. Unfortunately, the same community that we were trying to help were now lining up around our building for free hand cleaner. Personal space was not being observed and we decided to discontinue donating in this way. The risks outweighed the benefits at this time.

Over this weekend, we donate our first bulk loads to all local first responder units in need, as well as to Texas Health Resources for multiple area hospitals with no supply. We also agreed to donate as much hand sanitizer as we could produce to Dallas County going forward. At this point, we expected this to last 2-4 weeks before a larger company was able to take over where we left off. Given this timeline, we made the decision to discontinue whiskey production and opted for full-time hand production/donation of hand sanitizer to assist in curbing the spread of Covid-19.

March 19, 2020:
It is clear at this point that the hand sanitizer shortage is only worsening and that we will need to make some major decisions about our path forward. The World Health Organization has released hand sanitizer formulas to assist companies like ours in making a product that is more easily standardized across the market. We are now making hand sanitizer according to WHO Formula #1 and are donating bottled product by the truckload on a daily basis to Dallas County to fulfill the need at hospitals, nursing homes and with first responder units.

March 23, 2020:
Handmade masks are given to everyone on #teambendt and are now required when working inside. The building is essentially on lockdown, with no visitors allowed inside. Dallas County continues to pick up truckloads of packaged hand sanitizer multiple times per week and we continue to donate to local first responder units directly. To help continue this effort, we receive many donations from individual members of the community + one large donation from Mark Cuban directly. These donations cover the cost of ~2 weeks of hand sanitizer production.

May 4, 2020:
Nearly two months into our switch to full-time hand sanitizer production, we load the final truck of donated product for Dallas County. The strain on our small business has been significant and we must resume at least a part of our previous business to stay afloat. We continue to donate to local first responder units regularly and as needed and begin offering hand sanitizer for sale in addition to donating the product.

June 5, 2020:
Weeks after officially being allowed to reopen, we feel that we have sufficiently prepared to safely reopen our outdoor whiskey garden. We have gone above and beyond the stated requirements, limiting the number of guests per party, spacing tables far beyond the requirements, limiting the number of cocktails per person, using 100% disposable drink and serving ware, requiring that all purchases be contactless, renting outdoor restrooms and hand wash stations, setting up multiple hand sanitizing stations, keeping fans and misters running constantly to circulate the air throughout the garden… and the list goes on. We open to a completely new environment full of rules and regulations, but our guests note how safe our space feels and how wonderful it is to have a safe haven to escape to. At the time, it brought hope to us all that there was a path forward.

During this time, we also implement bi-weekly proactive Covid-19 testing for our entire team as a means to help keep #teambendt, our customers and the community safe. Although we still believe that testing will be a key factor in the path back to “normal life”, this program was discontinued after the first month as a result of long waits for scheduled appointments and even longer delays for test results. A 10-day delay for test results defeats the purpose of the test.

July 24, 2020:
After seven weekends of our outdoor garden being safely open to the public, our business and many others like ours were shut down by TABC and Governor Greg Abbott. Because distilleries in Texas face significant restrictions on direct-to-consumer sales and are banned from shipping spirit products to consumers, this was a huge blow to both our industry as a whole and our small business. To this day, we continue to beg the governor to loosen regulations to allow us to sell more than the current 2 bottles per adult, per month, as well as to allow us to safely ship/deliver product to our customers. Remaining closed to the public while having such limited options for sales is crushing craft distillers. Other states have proven that this is not only possible, but is safe and offers distillers a lifeline in a time of crisis. Texas needs to catch up.

September 2020:
Governor Greg Abbott announces that he is expanding the reopening of restaurants from 50% to 75% capacity. He further announces that bars may apply and pay for a new permit (avg. cost est. at ~$800), essentially converting their business to a restaurant in order to follow the same reopening schedule. To maintain this expensive change in business venture, the (former) bar must then maintain more than 51% sales of food. To be clear, if we would like to change our business model in the middle of a global crisis, we may open the same location that is current shut down, allowing up to 75% of our capacity, unmasked, inside and outside with the only restriction being that we must sell 51%+ food compared to alcohol. We have been unable to find the logic in these rules and made the immediate decision not to attempt to convert our business model to fit that of a restaurant, especially since we expect these rules to be changed again sooner than later. Additionally, we doubt that the now-approved business model would offer a safe environment to our staff and guests, since 75% capacity would not allow for adequate spacing as currently recommended by leading health agencies. As a follow up to the above, we are still begging Governor Greg Abbott to loosen restrictions on Texas distilleries, so that we may be allowed to safely deliver/ship (contactless) our products to customers.
As of September 2020, BENDT continues to donate hand sanitizer as needed to schools, low-income nursing homes and first responder units.

December 2020:
Following Governor Greg Abbott’s Executive Order GA-32, BENDT Distilling Co. is no longer able to offer cocktails to our customers. We have reopened our indoor gift shop with extremely limited capacity and are currently offering bottles, fresh craft cocktail mixes, BENDT Cakes, hand sanitizer, apparel and other merchandise for sale from the distillery. Please check our social media timelines for additional information on current offerings and special holiday services (e.g. free bottle engraving).

March 5, 2021:
Our whiskey garden has reopened! We are now offering craft cocktails, small bites, live music and outdoor seating to the public. Please note that we are still following CDC guidelines and do require that all guests wear face masks when not seated and when ordering from from our outdoor garden bar. Please respect the personal space of other guests and keep a minimum of 6 ft between yourself and other patrons.

May 15, 2021:
Our indoor tasting hall + distillery tours are re-open for business! Tours are planned to resume on Saturday, May 15th, with reservations open immediately. Our indoor tasting hall will be open to the public for craft cocktails, small bites and purchases. Following current CDC guidelines, all guests are required to wear a face covering / mask when not seated or eating/drinking.

Mid-2021 and beyond:
Fortunately for the health of our local communities, production of hand sanitizer by the original large scale producers did catch up to demand. Unfortunately for the smaller producers who filled the gap during the worst of the pandemic and donated far more than we were ever able to recoup with sales, this left many of us with hundreds or thousands of gallons of materials that were no longer needed, and which we no longer had any use for. Although we would not take back or change the steps we took to help those around us in their time of need, the cost to our small business was great. We’re fortunate that our distillery survived some of the hardest of times, and although the financial setbacks were great and are still felt today, we would do it all again without a second thought.