At the beginning of the pandemic, reports about liquor stores seeing a boom in sales baffled Anil Khanna.

Khanna and his brother have owned Dante's Cellar along Lexington Avenue in Midtown, for five years and said they were seeing the exact opposite.

As the city shut down, their sales were drying up.

What You Need To Know:

• Owner of Dante's Cellar says liquor stores with big online customer base saw sales rise
• Owner says he took the biggest hit with typical "walk-in" customers.
• Dante's Cellar lost about 80 percent of its business between March and April.
• Payroll Protection Program was the only thing keeping business alive, owner says.

"I was thinking, I'm sitting here and I could bring you the same stuff for the same price in two hours. You know? Why is everyone rushing to the same one store?" said Khanna.

After a little research, Khanna was able to answer his own question.

"They all went to the big guys the ones with a big internet presence, who have a name out there. All the small stores they were really struggling," said Khanna.

Khanna launched a website for his liquor store at the end of last year but with a mix of commercial and residential buildings in the neighborhood, most of his business continued to be traditional "walk-in" customers.

"Personally I like to go in because I like to see and select the wine and I like to touch the bottles," said one customer.

However, after the governor's "pause" order, requiring non-essential businesses to close their office, Khanna said that everything changed.

The store's foot traffic fell by about 80%.

Although business has started to pick back up he said it's nowhere near what it had been.

"Now we are suffering. Selling a few things on the internet and that's it," said Henry Long, the Manager at Dante's Cellar.

Khanna has tirelessly promoted his website over the last few months and that’s helped a bit.

Still, he said it was money from the federal Payroll Protection Program and not his in store sales that have helped tide him over.

"I did not cut one hour in the last two months. I kept everyone employed including myself," Khanna said.

Khanna is also looking into using smartphone apps, like Postmates, to boost his online profile.

He said it is clear that it will be a long time before everyone returns to the neighborhood.

Until they do, he and his brother will have to scramble to keep their business going.