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"It showed that, nationally, we lost $30 billion in revenue for the month of March, and it's estimating another $50 billion loss in revenue in restaurants by the end of April," said Ben Filecca with the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association.
In Pennsylvania alone, he said, restaurant revenue losses are estimated to reach $1.8 billion by the end of the month.
He says restaurants are an important part of the economy — not just for the service they provide, but for how they keep money flowing to other businesses.
"Their produce people and their linen companies and their landlords," he said. "If you look at a (profit and loss statement) for a restaurant, there's 200 lines on there."
Filecca says the paycheck protection program, through the Small Business Administration, has not been helpful to restaurant owners. Right now they don't need a loan to keep their workforce employed; they need a loan to pay their rents, other bills and vendors, which is prohibited.
"Even as we reopen, we're not going to be hiring back all the staff, because if you're just doing 50% capacity, or if you're just doing take-out and delivery, you don't need 100% of your staff."
Also, that loan would have to be paid back in two years. For restaurants, which tend to run on a small margin, they would need more like 10 years to pay it back.
"The program as it's written and as it was rolled out just didn't work for restaurants. So there has to be another package, whether it's CARES 2, whether it's COVID 4, whatever they want to call it, there has to be a carve-out that specifies restaurants alone."
Otherwise, Filecca says, many will be forced to close for good.
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