Jenna Manto|Wicked Local
Women-ownedrestaurants and caterers are among the 10 businesses in Hingham to receive more than $2.3 million in the first round of grants from the Small Business Administration's Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
Formed to assist with economic recovery across the U.S. after the pandemic, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund will give more than $2 billion to over 16,000 applicants nationwide in this first round of fundingin a total of $28.6 billion, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.Food and beverage businesses such as restaurants, caterers,and food trucks were able to apply for government assistance through this federal program.
There are 2,550 Massachusetts food and beverage businesses that willreceive a total of $992 million, according to data released by the SBA.
Restaurants' eligibilityis determined by theirrevenue losses related to the pandemic, according to the SBA.They are eligible for funding equal to that amount, with a cap at $10 million per business and $5 million per location.
Half of the Hingham businesses to receive money from the fund are women-owned and three indicated that they are "socially and economically disadvantaged individual(s)," according to the SBA data.
Meeting payroll
Kate's Table, a catering company founded in 2012 by two sisters,Kate Papaleoni and Kelly Griffin, is one of the five women-owned Hingham businessesto receive funding. They received $734,256, the mostof all 10 Hingham businesses.
Griffin said that ultimately the funding doesn't just affect theirbusiness, rather it plays a larger roleinan interconnected web that supports local farms andvendors that they work with to put on events.
"Receiving this fund and everything hasmade me realize how many vendors we can now pay, how many people are involved in this," Griffin said."It's not just a venue, it's not just catering, it's the guys that all they do is lighting for events, the big lighting companies."
The other Hingham businesses to receivemoney from the Restaurant Revitalization FundincludeVida Mexicana, The Square Cafe,Ocean Kai, Menchie's Hingham Shipyard,Matick Enterprises, Inc.,Gelato & Chill, andSmokey Stax BBQ.
Griffin said they have not yet spent the majority of the money, but 90% will go to payroll costs.
Griffin said during the pandemic the catering company was forced to adjust their business model to serving prepared dinners for pickup and delivery.
"So we at least had the ability to adjust our business model temporarily to try to keep things going, to try to keep all of our employees working," Griffin said.
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Yet, it wasn't enough. As the summer went on, more outdoor restaurants opened up and more options were available to the community, Griffin said. They went into "hibernation" in November 2020, dropped their insurance and planned a spring reopening.
Although they began to book events in February through to their opening on May 1, the sisters couldn't replenish Kate's Table's finances to pre-pandemic levels. Griffin said the payroll was "really tight" every week in May.
Griffin said theysubmitted their application to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund within 10 minutes of the applications opening.
"What that did was it just took all the stress of making payroll every week for those first two months as we were gearing back up," Griffin said.
They're also looking forspace to run their business out of, as they're currently split betweentwo South Street locations, Griffin said.
Offsettingexpenses
Frank Ricci, general manager of Raffael's at the South Shore Country Club whichwas also a fund recipient, saidthe funds matched what their revenue could have been by offsetting the expense.
"If anything the RRF funds basically make you whole from last year form an expense standpoint," Ricci said.
Moving forward is still "a little bitambiguous" due to the uncertainty of the pandemic with recent variant surges, but demand isis "very, very strong" and the community wants to dine out, Ricci said.
"We are optimistic that things can continue to move forward and hope that restaurants, not only ours but all of our restaurant colleaguesin town and across the state, can continue to operateat a high level," Ricci said.
'Winners and losers'
Although the funding has been an "extremely helpful lifeline" tovarious restaurants in the commonwealth, it is proving detrimental to the restaurantindustry because restaurants have received monetary government assistance and others haven't,Massachusetts Restaurant Association Executive Board ChairmanJeffrey Gates said.
"I mean right now what's happened, because...some restaurants have gotten it and other restaurants haven't, they've unfortunately created winners and losers, a group of winners and a group of losers," Gates said."The government unintentionally has createdwinners and losers now by doing that."
Massachusetts Restaurant Association President and CEO Bob Luz said that 65% of Massachusetts restaurant businesses did not get any money from the fund, despite the state's high rankingamong overall national assistance and the highest average grant in the country of $388,000.
Gates said Massachusettsis in a situation in which many restaurants have benefited in ways that others have not,such as gaining the ability to raise wages, further absorb higher wages and input costs.
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"It's already very challenging for the whole industry to keep going right now because we're all under extreme pressure from higher wages, higher labor costs and higher input prices. So it's just a very difficult situation."
On top of that pressure, Gates said the industry is still reeling from pandemic-related expenses, from bills to rent and taxes, as well as reopening and inventory costs.
Luz said some have questioned the fairness of "priorityapplications," but he does not think that's the issue. He said the biggest question peoplehave is how some of the businesses who struggled to stay alive while paying employees "doing what the government asked" them to doand broke even through PPP loans, didn'treceive funds and the businesses that closed did receive funds.
Moving forward, Luz said they're working with elected officials to get the Restaurant Revitalization Fund replenished. TheRestaurant Revitalization Fund Replenishment Act of 2021, which was introduced to the Houseof Representatives in June, proposesan additional $60 billion is added to the fund.
"I do believe it's goingget done," Luz said. "It's just going to take -- sadly and this is again a challenge -- it's not going to takeweeks, it's probably going to take months."
