As we expected last week, the environment has been changing so rapidly that we have been forced to adjust completely on the fly day-after-day. Weekend sales closely tracked the pattern we expected, with Friday and Saturday operations generating enough cash flow to get many restaurants through this week and into our current deep-freeze / shutdown mode.
As discussed, previously, and on innumerable calls over the last few days, we are expecting major relief legislation to be passed this week:
DC coronavirus relief legislation is expected to be passed today. I’ve worked closely with the RAMW to help ensure that meaningful measures to help the industry and our employees were brought to the DC Council for consideration and our industry representatives fought tooth and nail for you. The latest draft includes a number of helpful provisions and can be found here.
Maryland and Virginia are each in the process of passing similar legislation, though I was not directly involved in the processes in either state and don’t know where they will end up.
House Bill 6201 goes before the Senate today, from the latest news. This bill provides for an Emergency Medical Leave of 10 Days, paid for by the Federal Government via payroll taxes, and will provide us with significant labor planning tools.
I am constantly monitoring the development of the aforementioned legislation so we can get access to that relief. Additionally, I worked with amazing staff members from DC and the RAMW to help DC get the information needed to get the SBA to declare DC an eligible economic disaster area. As soon as this occurs, we will be able to access huge amounts of relief money from the SBA. Tomorrow or Thursday, when we have clarity on what tools will be in our hands, we will begin the long process of rebuilding from this disaster.
Many of you are not accustomed to sitting on your hands, waiting to get to work, so here are my short term action item suggestions for you:
Get your paperwork in order - send us everything we need to get you perfect books. We need all of your invoices, all of your statements, all of your mail. This information will be crucial in our applications for relief.
Take a full inventory - for loss relief purposes, we need to know the value of everything you threw away (or ate, drank, donated) so it wouldn’t go bad. We highly encourage you to donate your perishables to local food banks, if they can take them, or DC Central Kitchen.
Contact your banker - many banks can work with you right now for temporary loan modification. Skipped payments and interest only payments for several months, or better. Start the discussion.
Help your employees - if you have had to abruptly lay off your entire staffs (like most of us), you should encourage them to file unemployment claims and make sure they have the necessary paperwork. Here is the link for the website they should apply at: https://does.dc.gov/page/ui-benefits-claimants
Watch stand up comedy - seriously. This crisis is going to give us all strokes if we stay at 150% stress levels 24/7. That’s my job for you. You need to recharge to get ready to reopen.
Even though many of you are exhausted and incredibly stressed, you should be proud of the way you’ve taken care of your businesses and, by extension, your employees. You’ve made swift adjustments to get into this pause as viable business entities, now our jobs are changing for the next few weeks to work to get the financial relief we need to reopen. We are working constantly to get everything ready for the relief application process and I expect to provide an update again as soon as relief information is available.