Losing 80% of their business during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 gave the fourth-generation family owners and management team at Lace House Linen Supply Inc. time to think about how this food and beverage/mixed laundry could emerge from the crisis not only alive, but stronger than ever.

Lace House Linen offers a prime example of pivoting to survive the COVID downturn. The owners could easily have liquidated their company in Petaluma, CA, north of San Francisco. Instead, they cleaned and painted the plant and leveraged the downtime to rethink their business model for the post-pandemic era. That time has ...