After calls yesterday with leads from Events, Food and Beverage, and Lodging, the decision was made to cancel the first three special events in May.
This entails “dissolving” the following special events:
- May 1-2: Michigan Tech Graduation – Guest Chef Weekend with Ben Hunter
- May 8-10: Mother’s Day Weekend Package, and Mother’s Day Lunch
- May 16-17: Back 9 Endurance Run
These decisions were made due to the uncertainty with the State of Michigan’s mandates that are being issued in association with the health concerns in the world at this time.
With the current situation, Michigan Tech decided to cancel their graduation commencement. Our first event in May, a guest chef program with Ben Hunter, was geared towards graduating Tech students and their families — to celebrate the graduation with a special feast. With graduation not taking place, we did not feel that we would be able to garner enough guests to warrant having the event (assuming we could hold the dine-in event based upon state mandates for restaurants).
For Mother’s Day weekend and lunch, with the unknown surrounding the operations of restaurants, we didn’t feel we could plan and execute well for a glorious Mother’s Day Lunch in the current situation and environment.
For the Back 9 Endurance Race, we were having people traveling from various locations around the country to run the 12- and 24-hour races at the Lodge. We did not want our enthusiastic runners to be put in a spot of not being able to cancel their flights if we were not able to hold the event due to state mandates. Thus, we decided to make the decision now to cancel the race rather than wait until we were closer to the date of the event.
We will now focus on having our first special event of the 2020 season on May 23rd, which is a wedding. This is also Memorial Day weekend.
We will still plan on opening the Food and Beverage operations on April 30th, and Lodging on May 1st.
The current mandate from the governor of Michigan indicates that lodging and restaurants are considered essential businesses. Thus, we are able to be open for operations. However, we will adjust how we can operate based upon if that mandate goes past our official opening date. For example, if we are not able to have dine-in services at that time because of a state mandate, we can figure out take-out operations to our guests in the cabins and others in the area of the Keweenaw. We take it step-by-step, and adjust accordingly.
