LAKEWOOD — When baseball-size hail split the roof at the Colorado Mills Mall last spring, Manny Martinez was working the flat-top grill and deep fryers in the Yard House’s kitchen.
Just as he has for the past 14 years.
So, it came as a shock to the father of three when managers told him that the water-logged sports bar and restaurant would have to close indefinitely so it could be dried out and refurbished. Suddenly, Martinez feared a job he had held at the restaurant since it opened at the mall in 2003 was gone.
“I was worried,” he said.
That concern quickly turned to relief when the company announced to its employees a few days after that not only would they keep their jobs, but they would continue receiving full wages while the mall’s roof was replaced and the restaurant revamped. In return, they would have to do volunteer work and attend classes designed to keep their skills sharp.
“That made me feel very happy,” said Martinez, who works a second job at a pizzeria to support his family.
Martinez is one of 88 employees — out of a total of 105 employees before the hailstorm — who returned to duty at the chain’s Colorado Mills location when it reopened Aug. 11. Darcy Coghill, Yard House’s director of operations, said turnover was minimized due to the restaurant’s high number of longtime workers and management’s commitment to making them whole for the three months the business would be closed.
“How do we take care of our team? They’re family,” Coghill said. “How do we keep them connected to us?”
The fate of employees at hundreds of stores inside Colorado Mills in Lakewood was up in the air after the mall was strafed by giant hailstones and deluged with rainwater. In a matter of minutes, as the 1.1 million-square-foot retail center shut down in the wake of .
A was held in Lakewood in June.
So far, only a handful of businesses have reopened at Colorado Mills. Super Target, United Artists movie theater and Jumpstreet did so in the month after the storm hit, while Dick’s Sporting Goods reopened its doors Friday.
Colorado Mills’ owner, Simon Property Group, recently issued a statement saying its goal is to have the entire mall open again by Thanksgiving, with final touches to common areas completed by early next year.
Nevine Laughlin, talent management supervisor for the American Job Center in Jefferson County, said she hasn’t seen many mall employees come through her center in a while.
“Our assumption is that most of them were able to gain employment rather easily,” she said.
With , Laughlin said she is more worried about the mall being able to fully staff up when it reopens at the end of the year.
“My concern is there won’t be enough people for all those jobs,” she said.
Management at Yard House, which has an exterior entrance, knew the restaurant could reopen long before the rest of the mall in November. But starting up again would have been far more difficult if an entirely new staff had to learn about its collection of 125 beers and the nearly 150 menu items.
Coghill said the difference in learning curve is three weeks with a new staff compared with 24 hours with existing employees.
“We would never have been able to do it without the existing talent,” Coghill said. “The labor market is tight, and they have a lot of options.”
The Yard House didn’t just pay its employees during the shutdown — it kept in touch with them on a weekly basis. About half of the staff pulled shifts at the chain’s other locations in the metro area, while classes for those not working were held twice weekly on topics ranging from beer selection, wine pairings and fresh ideas for improving hospitality.
“They were trying to keep us up on our food knowledge,” said hostess Anna Ramirez, who as a 20-year-old was only able to watch — rather than partake in — the beer-sampling class.
She said the paychecks she received during the closure meant she didn’t have worry about hunting down a new job.
“I really enjoy it here,” Ramirez said. “I was expecting to not get paid.”
Steve Fry, general manager of the Lakewood Yard House, said employees were also asked to put in volunteer time with the Action Center, a social services organization in Jefferson County — 1,200 hours across the entire staff.
Yard House’s loyalty to its employees isn’t lost on customers, Fry said, with some waiting for a table at the 470-seat restaurant when it reopened.
“The number of regulars that came in that day were happy to see the team members once again,” Fry said.
