The Restaurant Industry Needs A Coronavirus Bailout. Will They Get It?

The coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. has ground the entire nation to a halt. As the nation shuts down and government officials stress that groups larger than 10 people should not congregate, the restaurant industry, either on their own or following mandates, closed up, leaving millions of Americans out of a job without notice.

Among the first questions that appeared, first on social media, and now on national broadcasts and newspapers is: How will the over 15 million out of work hospitality workers pay their bills?

The White House has met, or will soon meet, with airline and travel leaders; the President has already given airlines assurance that they will be helped in some way following a historic plummet in ticket sales.

During a March 17 press briefing, the President said he had met with leaders of major restaurant chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King, and stressed the importance of keeping the drive-through options open. No mention was made, however, about the thousands of small businesses that make up the restaurant landscape.

First on MSNBC on March 17, and then a day later on his personal Instagram, chef Marcus Samuelsson was vocal about the need for a restaurant bailout. “Our community is in a huge crisis,” the star chef told anchor Ari Melber. “This is the toughest thing that we’ve ever dealt with.

“This bailout has to reach the restaurant community, the small businesses, not just big business,” he added. “We need this bailout to reach the cooks, the servers, the dishwashers.”

Across the U.S., hospitality workers are begging their local and federal governments to step in with tax holidays, rent and mortgage freezes, disaster insurance held, and small business bailouts. It’s unclear what they will get, and who qualifies for benefits. (Similar protests are found across the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, as restaurants are closed globally in a race to stem new infections.)

Brian Sehong Kim, the celebrated chef and owner of New York’s Oiji, brought attention to the fact that not all restaurant employees can qualify for benefits. “What about employees in the process of obtaining green cards?” Kim wrote on his Instagram. “What about the trainees with visas who have made long trips and hard sacrifices to be in the land of opportunity?”

“I will never let them down until I get broken,” he adds. “But there is a limit to what we as individuals can do. We need a long-term solution.”

At stake: The 15.6 million restaurant jobs and over 1 million restaurant locations in the U.S., according to the National Restaurant Association. Before the coronavirus crisis effectively shut down eateries from swank hotels to family diners across the country, the restaurant industry was projected to make $899 million in 2020.

According to Grub Street, the National Restaurant Association has reached out to the White House, asking for an economic plan that includes tax relief, emergency loans and rent and mortgage deferrals. The industry group is already projecting a $225 billion sales decline and between five to seven million jobs lost just in the next three months.

“I’m normally pretty upbeat but this has been one of the roughest weeks for everybody,” a clearly despondent Marcus Samuelsson told his fans on Instagram. “I hope we get through this together.”