The Restaurant Revitalization Fund has fallen short of sustaining many of the state’s restaurants. The fund ran out of cash before thousands of eateries could receive much-needed financial assistance.
A majority of restaurants, big and small, are still trying to catch up on the losses incurred two years ago, when many were limited to offering take-out meals or completely closed. With no indication that restaurants will receive additional federal funds, restaurants that never collected funding may be left without a chance to survive.
“No one gets how busy we have to be to make money,” Erin Wade, who owns multiple restaurants around New Mexico and Texas, said to KRQE. “We were way below break-even. There was no way we were going to break even with take-out. This dining room is huge, right? I pay for every square foot.”
The Restaurant Revitalization Fund allocated billions of dollars in grant money to keep businesses afloat. Only a third of applicants received funding before it was extinguished. Those left empty-handed believed additional relief would come in the federal spending bill, only to learn it won’t.
“Two-thirds of the applicants have been waiting for the fund to be replenished,” Erika Polmar, executive director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, said to KRQE. “We have nearly 200,000 restaurants that have been waiting for almost a year for funding and they just heard they’re not getting it.”
Some restaurants may consider closing, which hurts various sectors of the economy. Not only are there more than 100,000 jobs in New Mexico connected to the restaurant industry, according to Polmar, but the business also impacts farms, brewers, distillers, and delivery drivers.
“Ninety-five cents of every dollar that comes in the door goes right back out into your local economy,” Polmar said. “When restaurants close, we hurt every single one of them.”
Wade told KRQE she worries about the small mom-and-pop restaurants that missed out on the initial funding. “The restaurants that are going to be the most hurt by this, the many restaurants that didn’t their grants are the small joints, they’re the local places,” she said. “They’re not the publicly traded big chains.”
