Are we ‘back’ from COVID? Sophia’s and D. Rowe’s are shining examples of survival. 

It was The Great Pivot — the moves that businesses had to make to survive the COVID pandemic.  

Columbia Chamber of Commerce President Matt McCormick offers his applause to those who successfully came out on the other side of the pandemic, and he offers condolences for those that did not survive.  

“Are we back from COVID?” McCormick asked in response to that question. “I think it depends on what kind of business it is.”  

McCormick was a primary source for a story in the December 2020 issue of COMO Magazine, commenting about COVID’s impact on Columbia. Questioned then about his vision for Columbia “bouncing back” from the pandemic, McCormick was quick to reframe the conversation.  

“We’re looking at it as ‘bouncing forward,’” he said.  

Now, five years after COVID first threatened the lives and health of individuals and businesses, McCormick said he can point to a variety of factors as evidence that Columbia is “back.”  

“I think we as a community are back. I think we have definitely bounced forward,” he explained. “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a recovery process, because there was.”  

In December 2020 as well as March 2025, McCormick repeated his suggestion that it would be healthcare and higher education — specifically the University of Missouri — that would drive the local economy and keep it above water. He noted with a light-hearted laugh that “a couple of great football seasons and a great basketball season” that is in progress “definitely helped” boost the community’s morale and economy. McCormick also pointed to the growth of Moberly Area Community College, and the positive impacts of Columbia College and Stephens College as contributing to a somewhat stable economy.  

“Those are good signs for our community,” he said. “We’re doing a lot better than a lot of places in Missouri.”  

Two of the shining business examples are local staples Sophia’s and D. Rowe’s, where business is thriving now five years after the COVID pandemic forced all businesses, and maybe especially restaurants, to make changes to stay in business and keep their employees.  

“I feel like it was twenty years ago,” said David Rowe, owner of D. Rowe’s restaurant. “The regulations, what we could and couldn’t do — were changing all the time. But the first thing that my wife and I did was devise a plan to keep everybody here.”  

Before the feds offered the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Rowe and his wife, Meghan, were able to keep all staff members working with a rotation system. If some staff members were accustomed to working forty hours a week, but could only be scheduled for twenty during the early days of the pandemic, Rowe was able to make sure they were paid for a forty-hour work week, guaranteeing the average of the hours they worked pre-COVID.  

All sixty-seven staff members had the option to work. Only two chose not to work because of personal and safety circumstances he said.  

When the PPP was established by the CARES Act, it provided small businesses with funds to pay for payroll and other expenses. Because of restrictions on social distancing, crowd sizes, and other factors, restaurants relied on to-go orders for revenue.   

“We did so much to-go business. It was insane. It was great,” Rowe said. “It was controlled chaos for several days. Sometimes the whole parking lot would be full of cars waiting for their food to be ready. It was crazy and pretty special because, before the paycheck protection, I was like, ‘What are we going to do?’” Rowe said reflecting on the uncertain time.   

D. Rowe’s upgraded its point-of-sale system (POS) to keep business flowing somewhat normally with limited staff allowed in the building. The POS system handles online orders, tracks inventory, and processes payments. Many members of staff took on new responsibilities with their job description changing, some were directed to answering the phone, and others delivered food to the cars in the parking lot.  

“The new POS system was a lifesaver,” Rowe said. “My wife figured out everything with the technology — she’s more in tune with that stuff than I am. I’m just resistant to it.”  

When the restaurant returned to inside seating and full capacity was allowed, Rowe recalled, “It was insane trying to keep up with all the orders. At times, we had to turn our to-go deliveries off because we were just trying to handle what was inside the building.”  

Rowe was thankful for his staff’s flexibility and for still showing up to work despite the uncertainty, but he gives the “hero” credit to his wife.  

There were days when Meghan was at the restaurant, and David was home with their kids, or vice versa. At first, Rowe was discouraged by the inability to talk and catch up with his regulars.   

“I would start texting people, ‘Thank you,’ if I had their number or it came across from their online order,” he said, pointing again to frustrations over restrictions. “There were days when I was over it, getting new regulations thrown at you weekly. I was mad, but I was just mad at the whole situation. A lot of businesses didn’t make it, not just in Columbia, but nationwide. At the end of the day, out of all that, we came out and I think we’re stronger than ever.”  

Both Sophia’s and D. Rowe’s relied on delivery as well as curbside pick-up, pointing to COMO Delivered as a local delivery service getting its startup during the pandemic.   

“We worked hard to make sure they understood what their options were for that, but we pretty quickly would have run out of gas if we were trying to pay everybody,” said Matt Jenne, founder and co-owner of Sophia’s and Addison’s. “We brought them back pretty quickly thereafter because we were able to open on a limited basis.”  

Sophia’s and Addison’s staff level was based on the level of business and need, not wanting to bring people back to just not work. Its part-time and hourly staff were put on unemployment to triage expenses. Jenne credits the salaried employees, front of house and kitchen managers, as the heroes for keeping the business afloat, sometimes doing the work of three people.   

“Doing to-go food, we didn’t know what the demand would be,” he said. “So it allowed us to gauge how busy we were to bring people back on, but they definitely took the brunt of it. There were situations like Veteran’s United who wanted to provide meals to all their employees, so we had to try and get a group of people together to do things like that.”  

Curbside pickup directly changed how Sophia’s and Addison’s operated on a daily basis. Carry-out food orders tripled during COVID. With Sophia’s recent ribbon cutting at its new location on Peachtree Drive, it’s yet another sign that Columbia businesses that persevered and managed to stay afloat did emerge on the other side of the pandemic.  

Meanwhile, McCormick listed some ways that “the new normal” changed everyday life and work life. For instance, remote working and the end of school snow days — hello, Zoom office meetings and virtual classrooms — are no longer novel approaches.  

He pointed out that Columbia’s place in the region’s economy does have some challenges, namely a low unemployment rate. While the 2.4 percent unemployment rate bodes well for the economy, it’s a massive challenge for businesses that have openings but can’t fill them. To that end, the Chamber has Show-Me Careers among a plethora of other initiatives aimed at getting well-qualified jobseekers into those positions.  

The Chamber hosted its 2025 Economic Outlook Conference on February 5 at Columbia College. The afternoon event featured a presentation from Curtis Dubay, the chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. During Dubay’s presentation and as part of a followup question and answer period, the local employment picture remained a strong focus.   

As Dubay suggested, McCormick also said that today’s workforce challenges were coming to the forefront pre-COVID, just as advancements in technology were emerging.   

“COVID accelerated technological changes,” he said. “If there was a five-year plan for automation, suddenly that plan went to two years.”  

Inflation has also battered family and business budgets, and historically speaking, prices don’t decrease proportionally when inflation shrinks. That is now part of “the new normal.”  

“For a while the new normal was crazy,” McCormick said, reflecting on rapid and unprecedented changes during the pandemic. “It’s not really easier, but that new normal has stabilized out a little bit more.”