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Restaurants In Need As Congress Considers Relief Bill

Food on plates
Jim Levulis, WAMC News

Even as they scrambled to establish curbside takeout and outdoor dining options, restaurants were turned upside down by the pandemic. Now, lawmakers are considering ways to help out the food and beverage industry as the colder weather approaches.

COVID-19 restrictions mean businesses have needed to get creative to keep customers. From moving to more take-out friendly menus, investing in outdoor dining, to bottling their own hot sauces, like Patrick Noonan, who owns El Loco Mexican Café on Madison Avenue in Albany.

“We’ve stuck it out and we’ve made it work and we’ve flown by the seat of our pants, but now what?”

Noonan also owns a Ben & Jerry’s franchise next-door, and a sandwich shop across the street that closed for good. He joined other restaurateurs on a conference call with Capital Region Congressman Paul Tonko.

“To me this is outright rescue.”

Tonko, a Democrat from the 20th District, is a sponsor of HR 7197, or the RESTAURANTS Act of 2020. Tonko says the bill would provide funding to bars and restaurants with a focus on small businesses.

“The $120 billion is focused just on the industry. On the restaurant industry, on any of those that serve food and drink – any sort of those facilities that would quality.”

While loan programs like EIDL and PPP were made available in the spring to help keep workers employed and assist with day-to-day expenses, that funding is running out.

Melissa Fleischut is President & CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association. She says most restaurants are running at 40 to 50 percent of their usual employment levels.

“We had over 600 responses to our most recent survey and found that 90 percent of the operators that participated in our survey do not expect that their restaurants are going to be profitable in the next six months,” said Fleischut.

The far-reaching effects of the pandemic trickle back down to the restaurant industry. As companies, for example, restrict travel, that means businesses are not taking clients out to dinner.

That’s had an effect on Aneesa Waheed, who operates Tara Kitchen in Troy and Schenectady.

“And for someone like us, we’ve always been a destination restaurant. So while we’re seeing a huge drop-off of customers, it’s not necessarily with locals, it’s more the people that will travel,” said Waheed.

With some practice running a business in a new normal over the last few months, Waheed is still planning to open a third restaurant in Guilderland.

For David Zuka, who operates Saratoga Springs creperie Ravenous, the future is uncertain without the usual summer bump in business.

“As we go into the lean months, without the cash cushion being built from having SPAC operations, the track with fans, the ballet, the orchestra, and everything Saratoga stands for and has to offer, it’s really taking the oxygen out of my business. Cash to a restaurant is oxygen and I’m about ready to suffocate,” said Zuka.

While the focus of Tuesday's call was the RESTAURANTS Act, the restaurateurs on the call also needed something else besides cash – eliminating red tape.

Heidi Knoblauch, who owns Plumb Oyster Bar in Troy, also works for Pioneer Bank, which processes the federal Paycheck Protection Program loans. Knoblauch asked Tonko to look at two bills in the Senate, one that would allow small businesses to deduct payroll and other expenses paid for with federal grants from their tax bill, another to simplify the paperwork when applying for PPP loan forgiveness.  

“Banks are, we’re looking at this forgiveness process and every day I’m processing, really, an enormous amount of paperwork for some loans as low as $1,000. So that would really be very, very helpful,” said Knoblauch.

And another thing business owners want in a time of swiftly changing regulatons: better communication from the state and federal government.

Lucas Willard is a reporter and host at WAMC Northeast Public Radio, which he joined in 2011.
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