Brandy Franco and Bob Weill are co-owners of Mystical Treatsss, 1310 Main St. in Hellerown.

My family and I often visit for the coffee and the children’s activities. I spoke with Brandy about how their business is faring.

For those of you who are not familiar with the store, I asked Brandy to describe more of the stores offerings.

“We serve nitrogen ice cream. Our cafe is from Cafés Richard in Paris, and we serve breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she says. “We are whimsically themed for the young and young at heart. We have a dragon named Dexter. He blows smoke for the kids. We have a unicorn named Spirit. She serves as a bench inside the cafe. We make our food fresh, and bake our own goodies too.”

Because of the shutdown/isolation period, the store itself is currently closed.

“We are not currently serving our food,” Brandy explains, “but those who wish to purchase a gift card may do so over the phone, and we will mail it out. We are hoping to reopen by late May.”

As some restaurants remain open for curbside and delivery, I asked about the decision to close the store temporarily.

“Bob and I felt that our employees were the ones risking their safety, and we wanted to make sure they were heard in our decision-making process,” she says. “They had many concerns, and ultimately did not want to risk their health right now. Their concerns and safety led us to the decision to close at this time.

“Bob and I plan to reopen when the numbers start to reduce for the virus. We are doing our best to support our community through social distancing and social media.”

The owners have also applied for a small business loan.

“We currently employ 10 amazing people,” Brandy says. “We would not be the cafe we are today without our employees. They are the backbone of our business. Everything we are doing right now is for them. They are the reason why we applied for a loan. This way we can continue to help our employees through this crisis.”

When asked for her thoughts on the stimulus package, Brandy says, “Instead of commenting on the stimulus package, we would like to thank each and every essential worker out there every day risking their own health, and potential their lives for the rest of us. We hope we do right by all those people. They are the heartbeat of our nation right now.”

While the store is closed, customers can still order gift certificates by calling Mystical Treatsss at 484-851-3700.

Gregory Marchetti is artistic director at Asylum Dance Project, LLC, 3020 Linden St. in Bethlehem. Louis Marchetti is its business director. Asylum is currently closed, but doing online story time to keep teachers connected with their students.

I asked Louis how the studio is doing during the shutdown/isolation period.

“We hold story time once a week to allow our kids to chat and have time with our teachers,” Louis says. “It allows a way for our teachers to still stay connected with their kids and provide a dialog again to bring back some sense of normalcy.”

Virtual classes are also offered, in addition to story time.

“We have moved all classes we provide into Zoom classes. This includes our recreational program and our competitive training program as well,” he explains. “Parents have loved seeing their kids staying active with dance and seeing the amount of effort our instructors put into their classes for their children, providing some normalcy during these uncertain times.

“We have also set up spirit days, giving the kids a chance to dress up, and TIK TOK challenges for everyone to follow along. We’ve also added a meditation and stretch class on Fridays. All this has helped strengthen our sense of community and family at Asylum Dance Project.”

So far, participation in competitions has been only slightly affected.

“We have been very fortunate that we plan out our competitive program to begin early and end earlier,” Louis explains. “We have only missed one of our four regionals so we were not able to attend our KAR (Kids Artistic Review) regional for our nationals, but still have hope we will be able to attend our Nationals in July.

“Our hearts go out to our seniors, as this was their time to conclude their year with celebration of senior week, prom and graduation,” he says. “Hopefully after this is all said and done they can get back what they missed.”

While employees have not been cut, hours have been.

“We have eight employees. We were not able to give back the full hours to all of our employees due to the limit of a virtual class schedule.

Louis says the shut-down has been a time of hope.

“The situation we are in is so surreal,” he says. “We are young as a small business; we are just finishing our fourth year. We have grown from 65 to over 225 kids we train and care for in our studio. The shutdown has limited our ability to provide the hands-on training but has not stopped our sense of community.

“Within this isolation period we have inspired ourselves to look at the problem in multiple ways to find the best solution,” he says. “We are learning more about ourselves, our families, and what our program can offer. It gives us hope that when this is all said and done, we will have evolved from this hardship. “

Gift certificates are available at Asylumdanceproject@gmail.com for individuals looking to enroll their child in dance. Those who desire can also join Zoom classes for a fee and sign up for a planned summer program.