‘I’m just grateful and thankful.’ Tacoma’s Go Philly owner reflects on whirlwind change
To say 2020 has been a roller coaster for Jason Kinlow would be an understatement.
While upheaval has hit everyone in some form or fashion, for Kinlow, owner of Go Philly Cheesesteaks & Wings, it’s become inescapable.
First came the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenge of changing his whole business model, which had just added a second location, to fit all the new requirements, seemingly overnight.
Then came the recent outpouring of protests and demonstrations following the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Manuel Ellis in Tacoma, who both died in police custody. Some of those protests passed by right outside Kinlow’s Tacoma location.
Kinlow, a Lincoln High School graduate, turns 47 on Monday. He says he fully supports the momentum for change he’s now seeing in the city, long overdue.
“It’s been tough couple of weeks, but we’re pressing through and trying to stay positive and stay focused and seek out ways we can be helpful and useful,” Kinlow told The News Tribune in a recent interview.
“As an African American man in Tacoma, born and raised here, it hits a little differently, and it definitely resonates.”
All of it makes looking back just to February seem like events from another lifetime.
Lakewood and a new Tacoma location
Kinlow is used to busy days and a full schedule. He’s also worked as a barber by trade.
He was among three Black business owners recognized for serving Tacoma in honor of Black History Month in a City Council ceremony Feb. 11.
“He really is part of the fabric of Tacoma,” Mayor Victoria Woodards said in remarks introducing Kinlow that night.
When it was his time to take the microphone, he immediately highlighted the other owners standing with him, one who also happened to be the first graduate of his Tacoma barber and cosmetology school years ago, he noted.
“I want to first congratulate them ... these are your role models for the next generation,” Kinlow said.
It was the first of several full-circle moments he’d experience in the year ahead.
He also started February launching a second Go Philly site at 7421 Custer Road W. in Lakewood.
The Lakewood location had its soft launch in early February.
While there was much to celebrate back then about the launch of the second location, even better news was unfolding with a deal for a new Tacoma site just one block away from its current location at 1402 Tacoma Ave. S.
The new Tacoma site, the former home of Vintage Lighting Sales, 1524 Tacoma Ave., is a glass-fronted iconic landmark in its own right, looking very much like a midcentury-era restaurant, which was actually part of its past.
The lamp store owners, Cindee Moore and Sherry Bockwinkel, were ready to retire and sell the property. Those plans were accelerated with the help of another local business owner.
Laureen Skrivan, owner of Wren & Willow, a Tacoma general contractor company, bought out their lamp inventory to help grow the home goods portion of her company.
“We’re happy (the lamps) all went to one good place,” Bockwinkel told The News Tribune in February.
Moore and Bockwinkel, in turn, sold their lamp store site to Kinlow, ensuring it would not be developed into another high-rise. That was important to them, and him.
The location where Go Philly is now will eventually be home to a new 188-unit market-rate apartment building.
“Why do we keep building walls everywhere?” said Bockwinkel in February. “And you know we’re in a shadow now. I mean, we used have all kinds of sun and everything streaming in, but the buildings are going up all over. It’s like nobody’s planning anything.”
“Why don’t they bring some businesses in first?” she added. Both she and Moore agreed that more affordable dining options were needed downtown.
“They wanted the opportunity to pass this on to another small business,” Kinlow said.
All involved in the deal were invited by Kinlow to gather at an opening celebration Feb. 27 at the Lakewood Go Philly site to reflect on the good fortune, and luck, of everyone’s situation working out.
Everyone from Kinlow’s contractor to a representative from Wren & Willow were there, because, as Kinlow noted, they were all part of the intricate web of connections in Tacoma that made all of it possible.
“That’s the thing about small businesses,” Moore said that night. “We all have to work together.”
The real estate contract for the Kinlow’s next Tacoma site was signed March 6, according to paperwork filed with the county. The deal was done.
That is where the story would have ended, a perfect twist on what could have been a familiar saga of a small business being displaced by development.
But something else happened on March 6: Pierce County’s first confirmed COVID-19 case was announced.
The pandemic had arrived.
Business as usual for Kinlow and his new Lakewood restaurant was about to change.
Pandemic and a swift pivot
As the COVID-19 case count grew in Pierce County, restaurants suddenly faced a stark choice: shut down or convert to takeout and/or delivery.
The pandemic’s repercussions on his business were “definitely, totally unexpected,” Kinlow said. “In the beginning, we were just thinking, ‘How can this happen?’ We weren’t open for a good three weeks before rumblings of this possibly going to happen with closures.”
A month after expanding to Lakewood, Go Philly had to pivot immediately, something that usually takes more than just a few days or a week to plan and execute.
To survive, the transformation had to happen fast. Kinlow and his crew had to make it or face immediate job loss.
“So many are unemployed,” he said recently. “So many of our peers are not working ...”
Hearing him describe those first days, it is as if the reality is still sinking in over the whirlwind pace of change.
“The first week or two was a little challenging. We had to take a little more time to work on efficiency in those areas,” Kinlow said. “We already had an online presence, but we were using a third party for online ordering.”
The third-party system unfortunately couldn’t keep up with the orders, Kinlow recalled, so they switched to a different system that made all the difference.
“It took a couple of week to really nail it down, but it was the best thing we could have done,” he said. “It’s been a lifesaver, needless to say.
“We had to act fast, it was a little stressful the first 30 days, but since then I am grateful for that process from that aspect it was a blessing in disguise and we are now better prepared.”
As for keeping workers and customers safe during the pandemic, he noted, “We’re just doing everything we can to be intentional on safety,” from frequent cleanings and sanitizing to masks.
“Our customers have been really gracious and consistent with us and, most importantly, understanding,” he added.
Business has grown; he estimates the Tacoma site, run by his uncle, Jeff Kinlow, has seen business increase 15 to 20 percent, and he’s been able to expand staff.
“As the weeks persisted, and business continues to grow, we were essentially able to hire more and increase hours,” he said.
He now has 25 people in total working at the two locations.
Kinlow credits Go Philly’s menu, with its broad selection of comfort food, for being just the right thing for these times.
“People get tired of fast food. They don’t want it every day. And at the same time you’re not going to be ordering out fine dining, so we fit right in with fast casual,” he said.
Go Philly also worked with the Trufant Family Foundation to provide meals at a free local day camp for the children of first responders, health care workers and essential workers through the foundation’s COVID-19 emergency fund.
Again, he maintains a spirit of grace, even when he thinks back on those chaotic days.
“I’m just grateful and thankful. I’m a spiritual man, and I’ve done a lot of thanking God through all of this,” Kinlow said.
But 2020 wasn’t done with him yet.
Protests, support and what’s next
Just as Kinlow and his staff got their bearings on the new business model to reach as many customers as possible in the pandemic, protests and marches to shine a spotlight on racial injustice and systemic racism swept the nation in general, and Tacoma specifically.
The protesters have conducted marches that have gone by his Tacoma site — at one point on a daily basis — but they have been peaceful, he said.
“We support it,” he added. “This is necessary. A lot of things are real that are not spoken. One of the things that made my heart feel good is that a lot of the protesters — they didn’t look like me, and it seems real change is possible, and that feels good.”
Kinlow is focused not only on the present, but what’s ahead. He hopes the new Tacoma location will be open by Labor Day. It’s now going through the city’s permitting process.
All that, and it’s only June.
Kinlow doesn’t have a lot of time to rest and reflect amid all the restaurant work of prepping, cooking and cleaning.
“It makes for long days but ... I’m starting to delegate more, so it’s not as many hours now,” he said. “But when you start from scratch, you do the work because you want to make sure it’s right.”
When asked what his message would be after all he and his staff have gone through in 2020, he paused.
“The biggest message I have to my community is, ‘Thank you,’” Kinlow said. “We’re not perfect, but we’re here, and I am so, so, so grateful how the community and both Tacoma and Lakewood have put their arms around us and embraced what we’re doing.”
He offered his business motto, which also seems to be timely amid Tacoma’s own self-examination in the middle of a pandemic.
“Our motto,” he said, “is just ‘Get Better Every Day.’”
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
