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iBurn, Houston’s only hot sauce shop, turns to the community after coronavirus leads to a dip in sales - Chron

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April, May, June and July were the lowest four months of sales for iBurn since the store opened in 2013, with July being the lowest month.

In a desperate move to save the store — Houston’s only hot sauce shop, which is located at 4227 Bellaire Boulevard on the south side of Bellaire between Wesleyan Street and Newcastle Drive — owner James Beck has launched a GoFundMe campaign.

“I just decided that we would try to reach out to our customers, family and friends, to see if anyone was in a position to where they might be able to help out so that we can kind of stop this crazy downward spiral that the pandemic had started and get things moving in the right direction,” he said.

“Fortunately it’s been just an amazing outpouring of kindness and generosity by everyone that’s gotten involved,” he added.

Beck launched the campaign on Aug. 4 with the goal of raising $10,000. Within six days, the campaign had raised $6,690 from 119 donors.

“I’m touched. It’s amazing. It’s unbelievable,” Beck said of the response. “As a business owner, you hope that, if you’re put in this kind of dire situation where you have to reach out to your customers and ‘hey, can you help,’ that you’ve had enough of a positive influence on their lives and enough of a positive influence on some of the things they enjoy, that they would be willing to reach out and help in a time of need.”

He struggled to find the words to continue to express his feelings, remarking that he is never at a loss for words. He also understands that people might be skeptical of a for-profit business launching a crowdfunding campaign.

“If the circumstances were different, and if it wasn’t something that’s so unbelievably catastrophic, for virtually every small business out there, then I would be 100 percent understanding and sympathetic to somebody who has something negative to say about this,” Beck acknowledged.

He mentioned other small business in the area that have already closed and feels that people are sick of seeing establishments that they enjoy go out of business.

iBurn did receive money from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), but it only applied to full-time employees, of which iBurn only has one.

iBurn has applied for loans through the Small Business Administration and from Harris County but has yet to receive a final decision about either.

Beck lamented that so much of the money that different levels of government set aside to support businesses went to large business and chains rather than to small businesses.

“We really just left that up to our customers of ‘hey, we’ve got our store,” he said. “If this is someplace that you enjoy going to and if this is something that you want to continue to be a part of the business landscape in the Houston area that, please help us because we’ve been trying for four months to find a way to fight our way out of this.”

elliott.lapin@hearst.com

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iBurn, Houston’s only hot sauce shop, turns to the community after coronavirus leads to a dip in sales - Chron
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