As the stay-at-home order from Governor Walz now reaches six weeks, small businesses are struggling to stay afloat, and keep money coming in the door. Despite the promise of loans and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPE), a local coffee shop owner has found new challenges when it comes to staying in business.
Christian Ochsendorf owns Dunn Brothers coffee shops, including one in Willmar, MN. He went through with getting the payroll program loan, but now has found he can't staff his stores.
"We have received PPP money which is to help pay for payroll," Ochsendorf told Dave Lee on the WCCO Morning News. "It could be used for some other expenses, such as rent, mortgage, and utilities. But the largest part is supposed to be used to help keep employees working and off unemployment."
"Well, it is an issue. Have a number of employees that are scared to come to work, whether they have underlying conditions or just are scared of the virus itself," said Ochsendorf. "And we have issues that some are actually getting paid more to stay at home because of the extra unemployment that they are receiving."
Because of the lack of workers and far less store traffic, their business has fallen off significantly.
"We have two stores that have drive-throughs that we probably lost about 80% of our revenues. At regular stores without drive-throughs, probably 85%."
Ochsendorf told Dave Lee that he's grateful his employees are able to still make money and pay their bills, but wonders if legislators are doing enough to help the employers.
"I would thank them for their help with what they have been doing. I mean taking care of, helping employees who are out of work with the unemployment with PPP is great. But we also need to think about the business owners themselves. If they're not around, there won't be any jobs to come back to once this is done. We've done a lot of help for the employees, but haven't seen a lot for the business owners themselves."