The American Restaurant Industry Is On Life Support
周一，克里斯蒂娜·科维诺（Christina Corvino）与她的丈夫和商业伙伴迈克尔·科维诺（Michael Corvino）一起，在他们的堪萨斯城餐厅Corvino裁定了35名员工中的27名。她说：“这是我们一生中最糟糕的日子之一。”
Local governments haveshut down or severely limited restaurant operationsin many cities and states. Even for those businesses whose operations aren’t limited by legislation, or weren’t several days ago, financial realities have dictated complete closures or转向外卖和交付. In Kansas City, the Corvinos made the call to close their full-service restaurant—with a seating capacity of 126 —in hopes of reopening later. They’re currently offering takeout and delivery from a sister concept, Ravenous, which opened in November.
随着上周第一家备受瞩目的餐厅在纽约关闭，当地，州和国家政府在很大程度上保持沉默advocacy groups and industry leadersbeganthe call for immediate relief. In a press conference on Tuesday, President Trump addressed sending aid to the hospitality industry—including small businesses—after meeting with corporate restaurant industry executives but offered no details.
The National Restaurant Association on Wednesdaysent its own proposal to the administration. It anticipates restaurant sales to decline by $225 billion over the next three months, leading to the loss of between five and seven million jobs. At the beginning of the year, the National Restaurant Association predicted that industry sales this year would reach a record high $899 billion, employing 15.6 million employees.
Read more:是时候要求政府行动拯救餐饮业
On March 12, the Small Business Administrationannounced最高200万美元的企业灾难贷款。本周，它提供了修订的标准to make it easier for a business to qualify.
“We talked to our bank about a line of credit and will go through the SBA process, which is tedious and takes forever. I'm not counting on it,” said Corvino. “Regardless, we already have debt. How will we tack on more in the future, going into a recession?”
This unprecedented crisis in the restaurant industry paints a bleak financial picture, even for operators at the top. Union Square Hospitality Group CEO Danny Meyer announced Tuesday he would forgo a salary and company executives would take major pay cuts to fund a relief fund for workers at the company.
Read more:当您从服务工作中解雇时该怎么办
在最近的一个Twitter thread保留平台TOCK首席执行官兼芝加哥Alinea Group的共同所有人尼克·科科纳斯（Nick Kokonas）分享了他的公司支持员工的计划：一次性的全职员工的一次性付款，兼职时间为500美元，兼职$ 500。科科纳斯（Kokonas）誓言，他会弄清楚如何支持任何遇到困难的工人，但解决了局势的现实。他写道：“如果我们立即保持全部薪水，我们将永远不会重新开放。”
His is an honest take on the reality that business owners across the country are facing: without diners, there is no money to maintain operations or staff. In a business with notably slim margins, a day’s worth of missed revenue can lead to financial distress.
Claire Sprouse opened Hunky Dory in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, last January. The all-day cafe serves a neighborhood clientele, and is especially reliant on Saturday and Sunday brunch service. A week ago, she said, people were still coming into the bar on Tinder dates. “People are still willing to make out with strangers, so that’s cool, it can’t be that bad!”
In the days to follow, New York and other cities and states would quicklyroll out an escalating list of restrictions, first asking restaurants to reduce capacity, then closing dining rooms completely. By Friday, restrictions were in effect, but guest demand had already dropped. Hunky Dory, normally running a one- to two-hour wait, had empty tables—even though she’d removed half of the seating to comply with city regulations. Orders for takeout and delivery didn’t make a noticeable difference to her bottom line, either. In fact, weekend sales on Caviar were lower than usual. (Sprouse attributes this to the influx of restaurants joining delivery platforms in an effort to stay afloat.)
On Saturday, she realized she wouldn’t be able to pay her staff for much longer. “I’m very acutely aware of the numbers we need to do to survive as a business while paying our necessary bills,” she said. On Sunday, Sprouse closed the restaurant after brunch service.
Deanna Sison owns and operates two fast-casual restaurants and one bar in San Francisco. The bar was the first to shut down, per the city’s requirements. “I have just been pulling together resources for the bartenders to apply for relief or some grants or anything out there that could be helpful for them, trying to replace some of their income,” she said, noting there are programs and grants in place that could help her workers. Back of house employees are harder to support through official channels, she said. She plans to start a GoFundMe campaign to support these workers.
星期二，旧金山announcedsmall businesses could not be evicted due to loss of income or other coronavirus-related issues. The order lasts 30 days and can be extended.
As the hospitality industrywaits for larger relief actionfrom federal and state officials, business owners, grassroots organizations, and other organizations have launched企业主的一些资源，清单正在增长。大多数所有者和运营商都在呼吁政府立即实施诸如减免租金，税收假期和酒店员工的普遍基本收入之类的立即救济。通过削减费用，运营商说他们可以让更多的人雇用。
对许多小生意sses, it’s too soon to understand what they should do, or what business might look like on the other side of the crisis.
Sison的一家业务Little Skillet保持开放，并提供了折叠式菜单和餐费套件，可供外观和交付。该餐厅现在已经充满了食物，因此计划是通过当前的库存，然后决定是订购更多产品亚搏电竞还是关闭。即使将员工缩放到四名骨架工作人员之后，每天的销售额不到1,000美元，也不支持继续营业。
“我们想知道我们是否停止操作，更好的是要缓慢trick流吗？恢复时间会变得容易一点，还是您完全停下来，只是为某种业务援助提供依靠？目前，收入的损失太大了，很难衡量重新进入健康的业务的含义。”
对于其他人来说，暂时转向外卖操作可能会更容易重新开放。Nur是曼哈顿一家59个座位的高级餐厅，开始在餐厅几英里内提供送货。据共同所有人丹尼尔·谢因（Daniel Shein）称，这是餐厅支持训练有素的厨房工作人员的一种方式。他说：“如果明天一切都固定了，我们没有员工，重新培训厨房工作人员，再培训他们将变得非常困难。”
As businesses close with hopes of reopening, they’re also relying on investors to help keep them afloat.
Jen Pelka是Riddler的创始人兼首席执行官，Riddler是一家香槟酒吧，在纽约和旧金山的地点。周一，她宣布了两个地点的临时关闭，支付了团队的病假薪水和带薪休假，并在4月底之前尊重员工的医疗保健范围。她还成立了紧急基金来帮助员工。
为了支持重新开放，佩尔卡已经与投资者联系了一项大规模呼叫，这是一项合同规定，使她能够向投资者要求紧急注入现金。佩尔卡（Pelka）的合同要求她也为这些努力投入大量个人储蓄。
她说：“我们的投资者社区令人难以置信。”
Things have moved quickly. The Riddler’s chief financial officer, who happens to be Pelka’s brother, Zach, spent two days running numbers on outstanding liabilities and operating expenses, projecting nearly every possible scenario.
“It was looking really bad, really quickly. Basically what we found was if we got to 70 percent of revenue we were deep in the red. If we go down to 50 percent there’s no turning back,” Pelka said. On The Riddler’s last day of operations before shutting down, revenues were well below the 50-percent mark.
几周前,卡片堆Pelkas’ favor. Both businesses were operating on healthy profit margins. Four months into business in New York, Jen described the business as very profitable, and in San Francisco, every month is profitable except for January. So both businesses had plenty of cash on hand, even as the New York location paid off final pre-opening expenses like construction bills.
All of that changed quickly. “Every day is packed with the largest leadership decisions you’ve ever had to make in your career, one after another after another after another,” she said.
Pelka and the team considered other options: food for delivery or even a weekly wine pickup, but ultimately she said it wasn’t worth putting hourly workers at a health risk trying to sustain a business that was operating in the red. Early this week, she and her team secured both physical locations, depositing cash in the bank, emptying the safe, even boarding up windows and deadbolting doors in San Francisco to prepare for “hibernation,” as she called it.
There’s no timeline for reopening, and if the closures last longer than a few weeks, she won’t rule out a re-concepting. “Can we reopen as a Champagne bar after six months? I don’t know,” she said.
There are thousands of stories like these, of small business owners working immediately to support staff and make sense of changing regulations and what it means for the future of their businesses.
克里斯蒂娜·科维诺（Christina Corvino）说：“除非有现金，否则（企业重新开放）几乎是不可能的。”“还有大问题 - 在周末夜晚，回到我们250多名客人的人数需要多长时间？再次感到安全需要多长时间？会安全吗？我们是否必须使聚会距离遥远一段时间？每个人都会破产吗？”
Current government-backed support systems don’t account for the particularities of the hospitality industry. Employees paid fully or partially in cash don’t have official representative wages to use when filing for unemployment. Claire Sprouse didn’t draw a paycheck from Hunky Dory, instead relying on other professional bartending 1099 income, leaving her unable to file at all.
在布鲁克林，斯普劳斯度过了星期二下午。帕特里克（Patrick）的日子 - 在Hunky Dory的酒吧表演，为爱尔兰咖啡服务。作为纽约市议员，这是一个很小的亮点adjusted liquor licensing requirementsto allow restaurants to serve alcohol for takeout and delivery.
“We were doing cocktails to-go—or,I是。”她纠正自己。“我习惯于说'我们'作为集体'我们'，享受酒吧餐厅。但这只是我。我正在做鸡尾酒去。”
