While surviving the pandemic hasn’t been easy for independent businesses anywhere, those in downtown Grand Forks have been particularly hard-hit.
Entrepreneurs in the small community spent months trying to recuperate from devastating floods that happened two years ago, and just as they were getting back on their feet, the coronavirus pandemic hit. “Before the flood, the downtown of Grand Forks had this pulse, and it was coming alive for the first time in a really long time,” Board Room Cafe owner Savanna Hines said. “The flood sort of took the steam out of that a little bit, and then it felt like it was coming back again just before the pandemic,” she said.