CLAY COUNTY — Local businesses that thrive as social gathering hubs are feeling the impact of COVID-19-related regulations and safety measures recently put into place.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that bars and nightclubs were to close for 30 days. He also announced that restaurants were to limit their capacity by 50% and asked other types of businesses to follow suit. Virtually every business owner immediately felt the effect.

It got even worse two days later when the governor ordered all restaurants to close their dining rooms for sit-down meals.

Other social centers are bracing for continued restrictions.

“It’s been really slow,” Gracie’s Barbershop owner Gracie Mahler said. “There’s been a dramatic drop off in clientele this week.”

Mahler said her Green Cove Springs barbershop is still open but that she’s unsure how much longer that’s to last. Both barbershops and salons rely almost exclusively on their daily clientele. Mahler said they need to cut hair to make money, and if nobody is coming in for haircuts, nobody is getting paid.

“People just aren’t coming out,” Mahler said. “If need be, I may have to close but for now, we’re just going to wait and see.”

Magnolia Hair and Salon is feeling the effects, too.

“We’ve had a couple of ladies cancel because their elderly but there haven’t been many cancellations,” one employee there said. “People aren’t making appointments though and we’re not getting as many walk-ins. We’re clean and people don’t come in if their sick. I think it’s just that with people opting to stay inside at home, we’re not seeing as many people and that’s hard.

“We rely on people, our customers,” they said.

Other community joints like locally-owned coffee shops Spring Park Coffee and The Urban Bean Coffeehouse are re-working how business works during the outbreak as well. Spring Park Coffee owner Steven Kelley, who’s also the city mayor, said the store’s seating was been significantly reduced to comply with the original coronavirus regulations. Since Friday, it’s been forced to rely on customers ordering their drinks on line or getting them to go.

Urban Bean’s shop owner, Chuck Warren, said with less people leaving their homes, his business has taken a hit.

“The amount of people coming in is definitely lower,” Warren said. “We fill our seats and with less seats, there’s less people coming in [before the latest restrictions]. Our drive-thru has remained busy though.”

Coffee chains like Starbucks have removed indoor seating from their locations nationwide, adopting a to-go-only model for the time being. Dunkin Donuts has done the same.