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Without Help, Illinois Restaurateurs Say They Can't Hold On Until 2021

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., spoke to members of the Illinois Restaurant Association during a virtual town hall of Friday, Dec. 11, 2020.
Zoom Press Conference
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., spoke to members of the Illinois Restaurant Association during a virtual town hall of Friday, Dec. 11, 2020.

For Illinois restaurateurs, when they say help is needed to stay in business, they don't mean sometime next month. They mean immediately.

"We just need something to get across the finish line before the end of the year," Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, said during a virtual town hall meeting Friday with Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.  "We can't wait until the new administration takes office. We need short-term relief. Now."

Toia backed up that urgent plea with some statistics from a recent survey of Illinois restaurant owners conducted by the National Restaurant Association. It showed 91% of those surveyed said sales were lower in October than in October 2019, before the pandemic set in. That might be expected, with the numerous mitigations restricting service options for restaurants and bars.

But 58% of owners said it's likely they'll go under in the next four months if the federal government doesn't act to provide more COVID-19 economic relief. Congress hasn't passed a relief package since the outset of the pandemic in the spring.

"There's so much desperation out there, and no easy answers to keep your doors open and people employed," Toia said. "The fact is, we can't sustain another shutdown without more direct federal relief."

More than 110,000 restaurants across the U.S. have permanently closed their doors this year due to the  pandemic. Fifty-one percent of Illinois restaurant owners said they are seriously considering temporarily closing their restaurants until the pandemic ends. And 65% say they will be forced to lay off more employees within the next three months without federal help.

The food and hospitality industry is the state's largest private-sector employer, and already has been hard-hit by COVID-19. More than 320,000 of these workers were laid off in Illinois back in March, as the pandemic's first wave struck the state.

Rick Bayless, a Chicago chef and restaurauter, said the crisis they're facing is real.

"We are some of those restaurants that won't make it past the wintertime," he said. "We're running on empty now. At one point, we had 250 people in our employ. Now we have 80. And a lot of our former employees are knocking on our doors every day, asking, 'When can we come back?'"

Greg Schulson, the CEO of Burrito Beach in Chicago, said the layoffs in the spring were "absolutely devastating" to the business, but it's about to get worse.

"We're at the point now, even after the summer here where we got lucky with some very nice weather, because of the business levels and our inability to do business inside at all in the state of Illinois, the layoffs are coming fast and furious," he said during the town hall.

Schulson said time is running out for the federal government to help before many restaurants go under.

"The pressure we're getting from our lenders, from our landlords, from our suppliers: patience is running out," he said. "And for those of us in the industry that are trying to keep our people employed, unless we get relief now, and I don't mean 'Now, in the middle of January.' I mean, 'Now, by the end of the year.' I don't know if we're going to be able to recover from it."

Bayless agreed.

"I am just super-worried that it's going to take us a decade, or more to get back on our feet, and if we just had a little assistance to make it through these winter months, I can tell you...we can do it," he said.

The situation isn't any better downstate. Karen Conn runs several eateries in central Illinois, including the Obed and Isaac's restaurants in Peoria and Springfield, respectively. To many in this region, she said it feels like the hospitality industry is collapsing altogether.

"With the effect of the COVID-19, and the stay-at-home order that was issued the last spring, and the on-again, off, on-again mitigations that were put in place this summer, it really was impossible for us to build up any reserves to get us through winter 2021," Conn said.

While many restaurants are still offering carryout and delivery, Conn said that's not enough to sustain an industry that thrives on creating a dining experience and social atmosphere.

"The margins are significantly smaller than dine-in. And then when you add in the expense of third-party fees, most restaurants find out at the end of the day that they ended upside down," Conn said. "So the bottom line is, it's just not going to cut it."

Sen. Duckworth is a cosponsor of the Restaurants Act that would establish a $120 billion fund to help independent restaurants weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Providing relief to the restaurant industry isn't just about helping out your bottom lines," she said. "It's about supporting the thousands of service industry workers across the state while also keeping them safe and protected."

Duckworth hopes key provisions of the Restaurant Act are incorporated into a final COVID-19 relief omnibus bill or package.

The senator also said she supports another round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, and loan forgiveness for small businesses borrowing $150,000 or less from the program.

Liability protections remain a key sticking point for Democrats in the ongoing relief bill negotiations. Duckworth said while she could get behind protections for restaurants and other businesses that are "doing things right," she has a problem with extending blanket protections to other industries, like meatpacking.

"Those bad actors cannot have protection," Duckworth said. "Gross negligence should not be protected. But on average, if you did everything right, and you did everything according to the guidelines put out, you should have some protection. I'm supportive of that."

As of Friday afternoon, Congress was still wrangling over the finer points of COVID-19 relief as talks enter the weekend, at the least.

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Copyright 2021 WCBU. To see more, visit WCBU.

Tim Shelley is the News Director at WCBU Peoria Public Radio.