How small restaurants leveraged their pain to win stimulus money
On July 1, about 100 members of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, a fledgling group of chefs and restaurateurs from around the country, ended a video conference call by grieving for Blackbird, a critically acclaimed restaurant in Chicago.
Coming as coronavirus cases spiked across the country, and on the heels of a spring that brought mass layoffs and paralyzing uncertainty in the business, the permanent closing of a landmark restaurant in the nation’s third-largest city was a bleak turn of events.
Sam Kass, a former White House chef and policy adviser to President Barack Obama, sobbed as he expressed his despair over the closing in his hometown. “If Blackbird can be taken out by this, anything can,” he said.
Chef Nina Compton remembers watching what many people called the Blackbird “funeral” from the dining room of Bywater American Bistro, one of the two New Orleans restaurants where she is an owner. The outpouring of emotion, she said, reinforced the urgency of the coalition’s mission — to lobby for legislation specifically to help independent restaurants and bars survive the pandemic. “People were saying, we can’t continue to let this happen,” she said.
Nine months later, the coalition can claim a large share of the credit for creating the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, a $28.6 billion grant program for small restaurants, bars and restaurant groups intended to stem the tide of closings that, according to the National Restaurant Association, has permanently shuttered more than 110,000 restaurants and bars in the last year.
The fund is part of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package known as the American Rescue Plan. It is modeled on the Restaurants Act, a bill introduced in Congress last spring based on recommendations made by the coalition. Speaking of the
fund during a news conference this month, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, said, “Without the IRC, I don’t know if it would have gotten done.”
The fund’s $28.6 billion is a small fraction of the $120 billion the group contends is necessary to stabilize independent restaurants. But its creation signals a notable achievement: Owners of smaller restaurants, most of them unschooled in legislative politics, came together to make a persuasive case for their businesses and workers.
The effort they organized may give independent restaurants some lasting leverage. Its leaders have vowed to fight for more relief, if necessary, as has Schumer.
And the coalition’s unusual process — encouraging members to vent and channel powerful emotions, as they did in that early meeting — lifted members up through struggles unlike anything most had ever experienced.
“Given the year we just had, I don’t know if I’d be sitting here today without the people on those calls,” said Robert St. John, a member of the coalition’s leadership committee who operates five restaurants and one bar in Hattiesburg, Miss.
For now, the revitalization money, which the Small Business Administration should start distributing by the end of April, is a much-needed piece of good news for a reeling industry.
The coalition began a year ago, when 18 owners of small food businesses met virtually to share ideas for surviving lockdowns. Members continued to meet in some form nearly every day, growing to about 200 active participants who engage with members of Congress and other elected officials.
While plenty of independent restaurateurs belong to the National Restaurant Association, the industry’s primary voice in Washington, many were reluctant to join in political action until faced with the prospect of their own demise.
Lawmakers say the National Restaurant Association’s influence helped create support in Congress for the amendment to include restaurant relief in the stimulus package. But early in the pandemic, many owners of small restaurants concluded that the influence of corporate chains in the association made it necessary to create an advocacy group focused more specifically on their own interests.
Caroline Styne, an owner of four restaurants in Los Angeles, including A.O.C., said that “the impetus behind the IRC is that no one is going to take care of us if we don’t take care of ourselves.” She and her business partner, chef Suzanne Goin, said they had been reluctant to get involved in politics, for fear of alienating potential customers or misrepresenting the views of their staff.
“But there are times you can’t keep your mouth shut,” Styne said.
Political activism is more common in the restaurant business than it used to be. Amanda Cohen, the chef and owner of Dirt Candy, in New York City, was publicly condemning sexual harassment, discrimination and pay inequities in restaurants well before 2020. She said the coalition’s formation provided an opportunity for chefs and independent restaurateurs to exert influence by uniting around shared values.
“We were a bunch of businesses that did the same thing, but we didn’t really find a unifying voice” before the pandemic, Cohen said. “The reality is that the way to make change is like this, through policy.”
The Restaurant Revitalization Fund is meant to compensate restaurant and bar owners for revenue lost during shutdowns, and the money is reserved for businesses with 20 or fewer locations. Grants of up to $5 million for single restaurants, and up to $10 million for restaurant groups, will be made through the Small Business Administration.
During the first 21 days grants are issued, the Small Business Administration will prioritize applications from businesses owned by women, minorities and veterans. Some $5 billion is set aside for businesses — including food trucks, food stalls and catering businesses — whose gross receipts in 2019 were less than $500,000.
John Schumacher is an owner of Harold’s Cabin, a neighborhood restaurant in Charleston, S.C., that has been closed since last spring. He said that from the beginning, the coalition set out to help restaurants that don’t have the resources of the group’s members.
“A lot of them don’t know what the IRC is, or what this legislation is,” Schumacher said. “Those are the ones we’re fighting for the most.”
The coalition’s political strategy was to leverage its members’ public profiles and community connections to compensate for what they lacked in political clout. News-media interviews highlighted the economic impact of independent restaurants and bars, which, according to research commissioned by the coalition, employ 11 million people and support another 5 million jobs in related businesses.
“They are such a vital part of our economy, not only with the restaurant jobs, but the supply chain,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., an early champion of the Restaurants Act.
The bipartisan support for independent restaurants positions the coalition to become an influential voice in Washington.
Bobby Stuckey, an owner of Frasca Food & Wine, in Boulder, used skills developed in highend restaurant dining rooms to become one of the coalition’s most effective influencers. He discovered he had a powerful network of contacts dating back to his days as a sommelier at the Little Nell in Aspen and the French Laundry in Napa Valley in California.
“I could call someone who I met at the Little Nell 25 years ago, who is from Miami, and be like, ‘You don’t know anyone who knows Marco Rubio, do you?’ ” Stuckey said. “If you’re lucky enough to be old in this industry, you’ve talked to a lot of guests.”