Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Rental giant surprises eight area restaurants
Enterprise spends $163K on gift cards
Owner Marco Tornabene thought he’d been scammed when the phone rang last week: Someone wanted to spend $30,000 at his struggling Italian eatery Nino’s in Boca Raton — all in restaurant gift cards.
“I’m originally from Brooklyn so my guard goes up right away,” Tornabene says. “Someone’s just going to give me 30 grand? Who does that?”
But it was legit. The company behind Tornebene’s unexpected windfall: Car-rental giant Enterprise. In a lifeline to COVID-challenged restaurants scrambling to survive, the St. Louis, Mo., company has purchased more than $163,000 in gift cards at Nino’s and seven other South Florida eateries.
The company’s South Florida headquarters plans to surprise all 1,638 of its employees on Friday morning, March 5, by giving each one a $100 gift card, says Dave Schmidt, Enterprise’s
South Florida’s general manager. Schmidt adds that the purpose — celebrating its workers during the pandemic — carries a nobler goal: to pump extra revenue into cash-strained family-owned restaurants.
“We made sure to pick only locally owned places, and minority- and femaleowned restaurants as well,” says Schmidt, whose headquarters span Vero Beach to Key West. “Travel and tourism are key to our economy so we see this as we’re in this together.”
Other South Florida restaurants include Tom Jenkins Bar-B-Q in Fort Lauderdale with $32,400 in gift cards; Los Tacos by Chef Omar in Pembroke Pines with $16,300; Yumbrella in South Miami with $45,900; Batch New Southern Kitchen and Tap in West Palm Beach with $27,500; Frank and Al’s Pizza in Fort Pierce with $6,800; Fire and Wine in Vero Beach with $2,500; and Kim’s Kuban in Key West with $1,700.
Describing the money as a “godsend,” Tornabene’s initial disbelief turned into relief when $30,700 arrived at Nino’s this week. “To be honest, I got emotional. They basically saved my life. Business has been horrendous since COVID started.” he says.
But Tornabene remained skeptical, and asked Enterprise to explain why, of all the Italian joints in Boca Raton, did Nino’s get so lucky?
“I asked him what made them pick me and he was looking at places with Yelp reviews, and it checked all his boxes,” Tornabene says. “I guess my Yelp reviews were good enough.”
Since lockdowns began one year ago Tornabene, 50, has cut Nino’s staff from six servers and three busboys to a skeleton crew that includes his wife Mary, who’s the cashier, and 21-year-old son Angelo, a busboy. Foot traffic remains slow after a Boston Market and a hair salon recently shut down inside his west Boca plaza, he says, and he hasn’t drawn a paycheck in 12 months.
“Takeout business hasn’t picked up,” says Tornabene, whose family has operated Nino’s since 1982. “The snowbirds didn’t come down as they normally do so I basically didn’t have a season this year.”
The gift cards are a lifeline that will keep Nino’s doors open at least another two months as Tournabene catches up on back-owed rent and bills.
At Tom Jenkins Bar-B-Q in Fort Lauderdale, earning $32,400 in one day felt like “a shot in the arm to us,” says Harry Harrell, who has run the restaurant on South Federal Highway with business partner Gary Torrence since 1989.
For the past year the barbecue house’s big moneymaker — catering to Fort Lauderdale offices — has cratered at least 35% as downtown workers stick to remote working.
But Harrell is thankful he never missed payroll or laid off employees, although several left to collect unemployment.
“A lot of restaurants are waiting to exhale, and this gives us a great breath,” Harrell says. “Something great finally happened to us. It’s a wonderful thing.”