Ep. 3: Trevor Morris and Stephanie Woodham

<p>Nearly a year after everything changed because of COVID-19, Chuck Williams spoke to some of the restauranteurs that took the hardest hit.</p><p>Trevor Morris and Stephanie Woodham have been fighting through all these challenges. They gave insight on the struggles of last year and the hopes for the future.</p><p>Woodham is a partner in three downtown Columbus restaurants — Smoke Bourbon Grill, Black Cow and Vertigo Fusion Kitchen. She said her public relations degree from Auburn University prepared her for the COVID crisis.</p><p>“This was very, very, very, very much a crisis,” she said. “In the restaurant industry, every industry. The whole world is in a crisis, clearly. I do believe my experience and my knowledge of crisis PR allowed me to accept it, plan for it and deal with it the best I could. …It was just pivot, pivot, pivot.”</p><p>Morris, 36, has been working in the restaurant industry for 20 years. He has owned restaurants for the last eight years, including Trevioli Italian Kitchen and Trevioli’s at The Rapids downtown.</p><p>“This is all I know how to do,” he said. “There were days when it was like, ‘If this doesn’t work out …’ I took a job for a little while around Christmastime doing construction for a guy that I know. … It was for about six weeks. It was, ‘like when is the restaurant business going to come back?'”</p><p><em>The Chuck Williams Show streams on <a href="https://www.wrbl.com/podcasts/the-chuck-williams-show/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">WRBL.com</a> every Tuesday, 7 p.m. EST.</em></p>