Small businesses such as ours won’t survive without a lot more help.
It was a punch in the mouth when we had to close the doors of our three New York City restaurants and lay off 25 employees. We had been searching frantically for a way to stay open. We had kept up with the news, read press releases from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and talked on the phone with our insurance agent and our lawyers. Ultimately, we had to inform our employees that they would be out of work until further notice.
Our last service was on Sunday, March 15. Sales that weekend had dipped by 25 percent. Before the mandate to end dine-in operations came from city officials, we saw the writing on the wall: With the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the city, sales would continue to decline. We would not be able to make payroll the following week.
We urged our employees to immediately file for unemployment, as we expected the Department of Labor systems to be overwhelmed — which they were, to a staggering degree. Luckily, most of our staff got through early and has been receiving unemployment for the past two to three weeks.
What about pickup and delivery? Sure, easy to say, but we would have to bring in roughly $30,000 in sales a week for one location just to meet expenses. That’s about 650 people a week ordering delivery or pickup at an average of $45 a person. That’s after Caviar or Grubhub takes its 30 percent cut. Near impossible. The numbers don’t lie…
To read the entire article from The Atlantic, click https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/relief-small-business/610066/
