Congress should replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund | Commentary

Restaurants have been my life. At age 14, my first job was as a dishwasher at a Union 76 truck stop in Iowa. I’ve been in food service ever since. I’ve experienced more than two decades of washing dishes, busing tables, serving and bar tending — if it’s a job at a restaurant, I’ve done it.

Having worked in multiple states over so many years, I’ve seen that there are advantages and disadvantages for every bar and restaurant. But that playing field gets upset when the government steps in with a plan that helps some restaurants and not others.

That’s exactly what happened with the Small Business Administration’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The RRF was set up to provide emergency assistance to small-business restaurants, bars and other foodservice businesses that were impacted by COVID-19. There’s no denying that the industry was hit especially hard by the pandemic and most eligible restaurants jumped at the help. But Congress did not provide enough funding for the program, and the SBA quickly ran out of money. So far, Congress has refused to make this right for the restaurants that were left out.

There’s never a good time for a global pandemic, but COVID-19 hit my business at a very inopportune moment. In 2019, I was living in Arizona, and my wife and I decided to move back to the Midwest to be near family. With the experience I had under my belt as a general manager of a chain of wine bars in Phoenix, I was ready to open my own place.

We settled on Wichita and found the perfect restaurant location in Happiness Plaza. The building had a lot of character and was in a great neighborhood. It felt like everything was aligning perfectly. We hoped to open our restaurant, The Belmont, in March of 2020.

That’s when I started hearing rumblings about a coronavirus. I thought it would be a short-term issue, and anyway, it was too late to put the brakes on The Belmont because we were already under construction.

We delayed our opening until June 2020, when we thought the state would finally be in Phase 3, which meant no masks. When the order was extended, we had to open regardless. We started with 47 employees, and we’ve been fighting to stay afloat ever since.

Because my business was just starting and I didn’t have a full payroll yet, I was ineligible for the Paycheck Protection Program. Near the end of our rope, we submitted an RRF application as a lifeline. I know a watched pot never boils, but I couldn’t help myself. I watched the website like a hawk waiting for my application to be considered. Once I reached third place in line, I thought it wouldn’t be long. But the next time I checked I was still in third place. My application was third in line for more than a month.

Then I was notified that the fund was depleted. I was shocked at how unfair the system was as we’d gotten our application in on time and had done our part. Sadly, over 1,800 Kansas restaurants received similar news and remain unfunded. And there didn’t seem to be any explanation why some applicants go funded, while others didn’t. For example, a restaurant I previously helped run got millions in funding, but my struggling new business was left out in the cold.

The Belmont has had its highs and lows, but we’ve managed to stay open so far. We have exceptional patio space that brought in many diners last summer but now that winter is here, only a handful of those guests are comfortable eating inside. We’ve seen a 60% drop in business through the winter, and with omicron, even the catering route is mostly closed.

We can’t compete with businesses that were given millions in government funds when we received nothing. Unless Congress replenishes the RRF, hundreds of bars and restaurants will close — not because of anything we did wrong, but because the government didn’t provide enough funding for eligible businesses. That can’t be allowed to happen. Congress must replenish the RRF.