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Vaccine Rule Boosts Sales at Little Rock’s Trio’s

3 min read

Although Capi Peck and Brent Peterson, owners of Trio’s Restaurant in Little Rock, were taking some hard-earned vacation time in Costa Rica, Peck interrupted her holiday last week to answer questions about the restaurant’s decision last month to require indoor diners to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

Bottom line? “It’s increased our business,” Peck said.

Trio’s made the move on Dec. 6 because of the rise in COVID infections in the state and elsewhere. Since then, cases in Arkansas have continued to surge, with Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday acknowledging that the omicron variant is “raging across Arkansas.” As of Tuesday, the virus had killed 9,358 Arkansans.

Despite the positive outcome, Trio’s decision initially prompted fierce blowback. “The first couple of days it was pretty rough,” Peck said. “But it was from people that we don’t even know. They’re not even our customers.

“There were some very organized haters who primarily contacted us either through email or social media platforms after they saw our announcement or lots of telephone calls. But again, they never would have been our customers to begin with.”

These people were vowing to never again eat at Trio’s, Peck said, “and then there was a whole rash of very negative restaurant reviews on Tripadvisor and Google.”

But, she said, “that calmed down after the first two days. And immediately, our customers applauded and embraced us. I think we had at least 20 people the first week that had not been out since March of 2020 to dine in that came to dine in at Trio’s because they felt it was safe.”

In requiring proof of vaccination, the restaurant joined the legendary White Water Tavern (whose website says it also accepts proof of a negative COVID test for admission) and 42 Bar & Table at the Clinton Presidential Center, both in Little Rock.

A look at Tripadvisor shows a handful of negative reviews of Trio’s linked to the vaccine requirement. One example, titled “Liberty and justice for all,” appears representative, with the reviewer writing, “Decisions have been made at this establishment to be discriminatory.”

Those objecting to Trio’s action “were super organized and they had a script: ‘This was discrimination,’” Peck said.

But, she said, the decision wasn’t taken lightly. “I did this after consulting with Dean Kumpuris, who’s on the COVID Task Force and is my colleague on the board,” she told me. Kumpuris, a physician, is, like Peck, a member of the Little Rock Board of Directors and is chairman of the city’s COVID-19 Task Force.

In addition, Peck said customers had been asking the restaurant to require proof of vaccination weeks before it did. “Those people had been traveling to New York, Chicago, LA or out of the country, where it’s [requiring proof of vaccination] very, very common.”

Peck said Trio’s staff had embraced the requirement and that the restaurant planned to continue it “for the foreseeable future.”

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