SERVING THE NEEDY

Charlie Sharp, owner of Station 52, donates food after coronavirus shutdown devastated business

Like many restaurant owners in Chester County, Charlie Sharp has found that take-outs don’t pay the bills. And he has more food than his customers can consume.

So Sharp, owner of Station 52 off of Route 52 in Kennett Township, is finding ways to give his food away to people who are going hungry due to the coronavirus crisis.

“People need help, and I have a restaurant and I know how to cook,” said Sharp. “It’s time to help people. It’s important that we band together to help those who need it.”

Sharp is putting together an effort to team up with UnionvilleChadds

Ford School District’s food service program to use his kitchen to provide meals to those who need them.

Like most other restaurants in Chester County, the mandatory shutdown of dine-in service has devastated his business. He’s had to furlough staff, and he said even some of his part-time staff told him they are getting laid off their full-time jobs and need work, any kind of work.

“This is horrible,” he said. “I don’t know what the answers to this thing will be. We are a small business and small businesses aren’t sitting on cash that large corporations have.”

Sharp knows that a large portion of the food he prepares and donates will go to those in the hospitality industry who lost

their jobs when restaurants, which typically run on pretax margins of just 3 percent to 6 percent, were ordered to shutter dine-in service.

The food service industry is the nation’s secondlargest private employer, with 15.6 million employees, according to the National Restaurant Association, And 90 percent of those are small businesses like Station 52 with fewer than 50 employees, a figure that includes franchised chain stores, which are usually independently owned.

The National Restaurant

Association estimates American restaurants could lose up to $225 billion in the next three months, a quarter of the nearly $900 billion in sales that they had expected for the full year.

Sharp and other small business owners can take solace in the $350 billion package Congress approved this week for Small Business Interruption loans. The money can be used for payroll support including paid sick, medical or family leave and costs related to continuation of group health care benefits, salaries, mortgage payments, rent, utilities and certain other overhead expenses including existing debt obligations.

FRAN MAYE — MEDIANEWS GROUP Charlie Sharp tends to the grill at Station 52in Kennett Township. He is working with school districts to provide food to those who need it.

FRAN MAYE — MEDIANEWS GROUP Chairs at Station 52in Kennett Township are turned upsidedown and will remain that way until the coronavirus crisis subsides.