Adaptability and resilience have proven to be among the most important skills for small business owners over the past year that brought on unprecedented challenges after an initial good start, writes Donna Rovins for The Pottstown Mercury.

Pottstown’s J.J. Ratigan Brewing was a new business when the pandemic started, having opened in December 2019.

“The one thing I think a lot of us have done through this whole pandemic is we’ve learned a lot,” said Keith Costello, J.J. co-owner. “Now we know – we established the right methodologies, we’ve put the right processes in place so that if it happened again we could quickly improvise and quickly adapt to the situation.”

Among other changes, the restaurant and brewery added takeout as soon as the shutdowns were announced.

Meanwhile, Bob Schwelm, owner of Bryn Mawr Running, which had to close for several months at the beginning of the pandemic, was focused on his workers.

“I think you started to think about employees a little bit more, about how much risk they are willing to take on, the things you are asking of them,” Schwelm said.

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