Restaurant representatives painted a grim picture of their sector in testimony before a congressional panel on Friday as they asked lawmakers for additional relief for their industry.
“We need help, like, yesterday,” said Sondra Bernstein, owner of The Girl and The Fig in Sonoma, California.
Her restaurant has served 100,000 fewer customers compared to the same time frame last year, she said. The drought of business forced her to lay off 170 staff members.
“If we rewind to just prior to the start of the pandemic, we had a roster of over 240 employees,” she said.
Saru Jayaraman, who runs One Fair Wage, which advocates for restaurant workers, said some laid-off restaurants have been forced from their homes and now live in parks.
“It is a very, very dire, life-threatening situation,” she said.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said that scores of restaurants have already closed and that more will undoubtedly be shuttered if Congress fails to provide additional relief.
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“If we don’t act now to help our restaurants through this crisis, there may not be a restaurant to go back to. And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s reality on Main Street America right now,” he said.
Melvin Rodrigue, who runs Galatoire’s Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana, and chairs the National Restaurant Association, said that 40% of the restaurants that are currently open will close in six months without further action by Congress.
The witnesses, who testified before a House Ways and Means subcommittee, called on Congress to renew the Paycheck Protection Program, which would provide loans to small businesses that could be forgiven, expand the Employee Retention Tax Credit that would allow businesses to deduct the cost of buying personal protection equipment for workers, and renew the enhanced unemployment payment that expired in July and provided jobless workers a $600 weekly payment above their regular benefits.
Several Democratic members on the subcommittee focused their questions on providing additional relief to state and local governments, which many Republicans oppose.
Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina, who sits on the subcommittee, told the witnesses that there is broad bipartisan support to help the restaurant industry, but including state and local funding in the next package could be problematic.
“We all want to deliver [relief] to you. The question is: What is the ransom we will have to pay to give it to you?” he asked.
The hearing comes as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, is taking the lead on crafting another coronavirus relief package costing roughly $2.2 trillion.
A vote on the package could occur before the House adjourns for the election on Oct. 2.
