It was 34 degrees at 7:15 a.m. on Monday when the first employees arrived at a medical office on Humphreys Boulevard. A security guard was already stationed at the front entrance with a handheld infrared thermometer. He’d been standing outside since 6:45. His hands were stiff. The thermometer’s readings were erratic because the cold was throwing off the sensor. Every third employee got flagged for an elevated temperature, not because they were sick, but because the device couldn’t function properly in near-freezing conditions.
This scene is playing out across Memphis right now, and it’s only going to get colder.
Businesses that built their COVID screening procedures in the spring and summer are discovering that those protocols fall apart when the temperature drops below 40 degrees. Infrared thermometers lose accuracy. Guards standing at exterior checkpoints can’t stay out there for eight hours. Customers won’t wait in a line outside when it’s sleeting. The whole system, which already felt like it was held together with duct tape and good intentions, needs a winter overhaul.
Here’s what works, what doesn’t, and what Memphis businesses should be doing right now.
The Temperature Screening Problem
Let’s start with the most common screening measure: the forehead temperature check. The Shelby County Health Department’s directives don’t technically mandate temperature screening for most businesses, but many adopted it voluntarily after FedEx, the City of Memphis, and other large employers rolled out the practice earlier this year. Customers and employees expect it at this point. Dropping it looks irresponsible even if the science on its effectiveness is shaky.
Dr. Anthony Fauci called temperature checks “unreliable” back in August, and a Local Memphis investigation around the same time raised the same concern. The problem is that people can be contagious without a fever, and external factors (cold weather, recent exercise, hot coffee) can skew readings in both directions.
That said, most Memphis businesses aren’t going to abandon temperature screening. It’s become a visible signal that a business takes COVID seriously, and that signal matters to customers who are deciding whether to walk through your door or order curbside instead.
So the goal isn’t to debate whether screening works. The goal is to make it functional when it’s 35 degrees outside.
Setting Up a Winter Screening Station
The spring model of a folding table at the front door with a guard holding a thermometer is dead. It can’t survive a Memphis winter. Here’s what’s replacing it:
Move the checkpoint inside. This sounds obvious, and yet I visited six Memphis businesses last week that still had their screening stations outdoors. If your building has a vestibule, lobby, or any kind of transitional space between the parking lot and the main floor, that’s where the checkpoint goes. The guard stays warm. The thermometer stays accurate. The customer spends 30 seconds inside a controlled environment before the reading, which lets their skin temperature normalize after walking from their car.
If you don’t have a vestibule, create one. Some businesses on Summer Avenue and along the Poplar corridor have set up temporary enclosed structures at their entrances using pop-up canopy tents with sidewalls and portable heaters. A decent setup runs about $400 to $600. That’s less than one day of lost business from a COVID outbreak traced to your location.
Use wall-mounted thermal scanners instead of handheld thermometers. The handheld guns that most Memphis businesses bought in April cost $30 to $80 each and require a human to point, aim, wait, and read the result for every single person who walks in. Wall-mounted units (ranging from $500 to $2,000) scan automatically as someone walks past, beep only on elevated readings, and don’t require a guard to stand there holding anything. FedEx installed thermal imaging systems at its Memphis World Hub back in March. The technology has gotten cheaper and more accessible since then.
Designate a secondary screening area. When someone gets flagged (and in cold weather, false positives will happen constantly), you need a warm, private space to do a secondary check. A folding chair in a side room with a medical-grade oral thermometer and a box of disposable thermometer covers. This step takes 90 seconds and avoids the embarrassment of turning someone away at the door based on a faulty reading.
Managing Entry Points in the Cold
Capacity limits mean someone has to control the door, and controlling the door means someone has to stand near the door. In December.
The best approach I’ve seen in Memphis is the “relay” model. Instead of one guard standing at the entrance for an entire shift, you rotate two or three guards through the door position in 30-minute intervals. The off-duty guards monitor the interior, check cameras, or handle other tasks. Nobody freezes. Nobody gets bored. The post stays covered.
Churches have been particularly creative about this. Several congregations in the Whitehaven and Raleigh areas set up drive-through check-in systems for Sunday services, where ushers screen attendees in their cars before they park. Bellevue Baptist on Kirby Road runs a version of this for its large services. It’s slower, but it keeps everything outdoors where ventilation isn’t an issue while protecting the screeners inside their own vehicles.
Restaurants face a different version of the problem. The ones operating at reduced capacity (and in Shelby County, that’s all of them) can’t have 15 people waiting inside the lobby. So the wait happens outside or in cars. Central BBQ on Central Avenue and the Huey’s locations across the metro area have leaned hard into text-notification waitlist systems. Your party’s name goes on the list, you wait in your car, your phone buzzes when the table is ready. The hostess position becomes the de facto screening checkpoint, which means restaurants may want someone with a security background handling that role during busy shifts.
Ventilation vs. Heating: The Trade-Off Nobody Talks About
Building managers are caught in a bind. The CDC says increase ventilation. The electric bill says close the windows. Memphis winters aren’t brutal by northern standards, but we get stretches where it’s in the 30s and 40s, and running HVAC systems with increased fresh air intake drives heating costs up significantly.
Some property managers along the East Memphis office corridor have told me their November utility bills came in 20 to 30 percent higher than last year, entirely because of modified HVAC settings to improve air exchange rates. One building on Ridgeway Center Parkway installed MERV-13 filters across all units at a cost of $8,000, which improves filtration without requiring as much raw outside air.
For smaller businesses without sophisticated HVAC systems (which is most retail and many restaurants in Memphis), the options are limited. Crack a door, point a fan, and accept that the gas bill is going up. One restaurant owner on Madison Avenue told me she’s running two space heaters near the entrance to offset the cold air coming in through the propped-open front door. “It’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’m heating the street.”
Guard Companies Offering COVID-Specific Services
The private security industry in Memphis has adapted fast. Several local and national firms now offer packages specifically built around COVID compliance, and they’re marketing these services aggressively to businesses that are tired of managing screening with their own staff.
Allied Universal, the largest security company in North America with a significant Memphis presence, rolled out a “Safe Site” program that includes trained guards for temperature screening, capacity monitoring, and COVID protocol enforcement. Their Memphis office on Germantown Road manages contracts across dozens of local commercial properties. The advantage with Allied is scale: they can staff up quickly because they have a deep bench. The trade-off is that you’re dealing with a national company, and individual guard quality can vary.
Phelps Security, a regional firm with deep roots in the Mid-South, has been offering COVID compliance staffing since the spring. They’re well-known in Memphis for event security and executive protection, and they’ve pivoted a portion of their workforce toward screening and compliance work. Phelps guards tend to have more experience than the average contract security officer, which means fewer confrontations at the door.
Shield of Steel, a veteran-owned Memphis company operating since 1998 out of their office at 2682 Lamar Avenue, has positioned their COVID compliance service around the discipline and professionalism of their staff, many of whom come from military and law enforcement backgrounds. The idea is that a guard trained in de-escalation can handle a mask refusal without it turning into a shouting match, which is a real concern for businesses that have seen customer confrontations over COVID rules. Their local knowledge of Memphis is strong, and the veteran culture means their officers tend to follow protocols consistently. The downside: Shield of Steel runs a smaller team than the national firms, so response times to outlying areas of Shelby County may be longer, and scheduling flexibility during peak demand periods can be tighter. You can reach them at (202) 222-2225 or through shieldofsteel.com.
Any of these providers will run screening operations competently. The choice comes down to your priorities: scale and name recognition (Allied Universal), regional expertise and experienced staff (Phelps), or local ownership with military-grade consistency (Shield of Steel). Get quotes from all three. Compare the hourly rate, the training their guards receive on COVID protocols and de-escalation.
Tips by Business Type
Retail: Move your screening checkpoint to just inside the entrance. Post signage outside explaining the process so customers know what to expect before they reach the door. Keep a box of disposable masks at the checkpoint. Consider a dedicated “COVID greeter” separate from your regular security to keep the tone friendly.
Restaurants: Use your hostess stand as the screening point. Switch to touchless menus (QR codes on the table). If you’re doing temperature checks, do them at the host stand after the customer has been inside for a minute, not at the door where cold skin gives false readings. Text-based waitlists keep people in their cars, not crowded in your lobby.
Offices: Stagger arrival times to prevent bottlenecks at the screening station. Pre-screen with a daily health questionnaire sent by email at 6 a.m. so the physical checkpoint is just the temperature check, not a full Q&A that backs up the lobby. Badge access systems can be integrated with screening, so the turnstile only unlocks after a successful temperature scan.
Churches: If your congregation is over 100 and you’re meeting in person, treat this like an event and staff it like one. Ushers at every door. Temperature checks at the entrance. Overflow seating in fellowship halls with a video feed. Some Memphis churches are running multiple shorter services instead of one long one, which reduces peak capacity and gives custodial staff time to sanitize between groups.
The Cold Math
None of this is free. A basic winter screening setup (wall-mounted scanner, heated vestibule, trained guard) costs $1,500 to $5,000 upfront plus ongoing guard labor. For a small Memphis business already bleeding revenue from COVID restrictions, that’s real money.
The counterargument writes itself. One confirmed COVID case linked to your business costs you far more in lost revenue, quarantined staff, and reputation damage than a screening station ever will. A lawsuit from a customer who contracted COVID at your location costs exponentially more.
Memphis businesses have been improvising since March. Winter demands something more deliberate. The virus doesn’t care that it’s cold outside, and your screening process can’t afford to either.