This Is the Only Way to Save the Restaurants You Love
It’s beenover a monthsince things last felt normal. Over a month since anyone could pop into a bakery for a buttery croissant and a foamy cappuccino. Over a month since lines of hungry office workers on their lunch break snaked out of the shop that makes the good sandwiches. Over a month since it was possible to sit at a bar, cold beer in one hand, cheap burger in the other. Over a month since dim sum carts loaded with dumplings clattered around a busy dining room on a Sunday afternoon. Since then, restaurants have shuttered, and paper now covers the windows of places that used to have three-hour waits for tables. Ovens that used to turn out loaves of bread and pizzas now sit cold. Entire staffs have been laid off (estimates sayover 8 million people in total），唯一的声音是账单堆积和愤怒的声音。谁打算营救餐馆？
Some restaurants have managed to pivot to出售杂货，进行外卖或交货 -有自己的问题- 他们正在做足够的刮擦。这足以再烹饪一天，但是这些餐厅绝不蓬勃发展。在几次访谈中，多位厨师估计，如果幸运的话，他们正在赚取过去的20％至30％的骨骼操作。许多人根本没有做任何事情，并努力弄清楚没有任何理事机构的明确准则，可以采取哪些健康和安全措施。有很多关于what restaurants might look likewhen they are allowed to fully reopen—50-percent-capacity dining rooms, a heavy emphasis on take-out, cashless payments—but the reality is, without major financial help, most restaurants will not even have a chance to figure out what the new normal looks like.
The PPP, or Paycheck Protection Program, is completely inadequate for what restaurants need. The program was set up to offer small businesses loans to help get them through the pandemic. Unfortunately, the first round of funding for the PPPran out in a matter of days, with only nine percent of the funds going towards the restaurant and hospitality industry, even though the food and beverage industry currently makes up 60 percent of the total unemployment claims, according to the独立餐厅联盟。
在捐赠给酒店业的9％的资金中，有数百万美元被赠送给像Shake Shack这样的大型连锁餐厅，该餐厅获得了1000万美元的贷款。露丝（Ruth）的克里斯牛排馆（Chris Steakhouse）获得了2000万美元，而十亿美元的沙拉连锁店Sweetgreen获得了1000万美元。这些公司永远不应该首先申请这些贷款，但是由于法律规定，每个位置少于500名员工的餐馆可以适用，因此可以这样做。成千上万的小餐馆（这些资金原本是用于这些资金的实际小型企业），远高而干燥。
What perhaps is most frustrating for small-restaurant owners is that they don’t need millions of dollars to stay afloat, and yet they are having a difficult time getting access to capital. According to a survey from the James Beard Foundation and the IRC, 68 percent of restaurant owners said they could keep the doors open for at least another month with a cash infusion of $50,000 or less. For the loan Shake Shack received, the money could have instead helped at least 200 independent restaurants. Same goes for the loan Sweetgreen received. For the loan Ruth’s Chris received, the money could have instead helped at least 400 independent restaurants. It’s easy to see why small-restaurant owners remain frustrated: The government could have helped at least 800 restaurants with the money they awarded to just three major chains that have other means to access capital.
当然，Shake Shack退还了贷款本周 - 但只有在他们能够通过出售数百万股股票来筹集更多资金之后。对于大多数餐馆来说，这不是一个选择。对于连锁店返回的1000万美元，它似乎收到了价值2000万美元的积极新闻。Sweetgreen和Ruth的Chris等其他连锁店也效仿，这在很大程度上要归功于公众的压力和愤怒。现在，尚未退还贷款的主要餐厅联邦政府将要求这样做。Still, there is no guarantee that this money will be distributed to smaller restaurants.
PPP已经补充3100亿美元,但即使很小的时候伸出urants are able to qualify for loans this round, it’s likely not worth it. The language surrounding the PPP is incredibly complicated, but one thing is clear: The terms are impossible for restaurants to adhere to. The loans are only forgivable if a restaurant is at close or full payroll by June 30. That means restaurants will have to re-hire all of their staff, only to lay them off again in a few weeks because there is no real timeline available for when they will be able to fully reopen safely. This is why chef Matt Poirer, who was approved for a loan, turned it down, as他在Instagram视频中解释亚搏刀塔2。此外，所有者没有能力使用资金，因为他们认为合适以确保其生存。正如厨师加布里埃尔·汉密尔顿（Gabrielle Hamilton）写的那样一篇文章New York Times：“我无法真正使用贷款来实现我需要的东西：在可预见的未来租金，以及一堆发票仍然困扰着我在办公室里。”
What restaurants desperately need right now is a specific fund geared toward the stabilization of the restaurant industry. Not the PPP, and not Trump’s proposed tax deductions that just benefit the restaurants owned bythe buffoon advisory council Trump has created仅由快餐亚搏电竞高端高端美食餐厅的首席执行官和厨师与富裕的客户。正如食亚搏电竞品作家Max Falkowitz所注明的那样Grub街, “The fast-food industry and the fine-dining world are two sides of the same golden coin.” The government has specifically bailed out other industries—so why not small restaurants? Especially when they contribute billions of dollars to the economy.
The harsh reality is this: Without specific government assistance, most the restaurants you love will close permanently, no matter how much您购买的商品，您订购的外卖餐，以及您捐款的GoFundMe活动。
当您失去小餐馆时，您不仅会失去一个吃饭的地方。您将失去雇员无证件和以前被监禁的少数行业之一。您失去了一个支持其他行业的经济枢纽农业and tech. You lose places to gather and to celebrate. You lose the foundations of neighborhoods. And there will never be enough Shake Shack burgers, Sweetgreen salads, or Ruth’s Chris steaks to fill that void.
