Restaurant owners / Small business what is the survival strategy?

[Anonymous]

How are you going to pay fixed expenses?

[Anonymous]

selling drugs on the side (not joking).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:selling drugs on the side (not joking).

Who's buying? People aren't going to have much cash to spend on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:selling drugs on the side (not joking).

Who's buying? People aren't going to have much cash to spend on it.

DP: people always want drugs. Especially during a recession to escape the bad news

[Anonymous]

I am a major investor ina few restaurants. Fortunately for me I have another business that is actually flourishing right now.

I had a teleconference with my partners on Sunday night. We shut both restaurants down effective Monday. Complete stop.

Employees were immediately eligible for unemployment at 60%. We are paying only the following expenses: insurance, utilities (which will be much lower), license renewals so when everything comes back we can immediately start. We notified landlord that we will not pay April (what are they going to do, not like another restaurant or anyone is looking at leasing space right now) and will reconvene with them April 15 and assess from there. I figure we can easily work out a payment plan with them. We’ve been there 6 years and while catastrophic this is a blip. We can limit monthly expenses without rent to $3K.

Partners without other income called mortgage companies and asked for deferment for April payments. I am sure it will be approved. Partners are only paying food, insurance and other necessities. They are paying for cell phone internet and cable/ Netflix since they are trapped at home. They will sort out the rest later. They will actually be increasing cash on hand albeit they will be not paying their utilities etc and will need to do so later

Presuming this is relatively short lived it won’t be catastrophic by any means.

Partners who only have income from restaurant

[Anonymous]

Hopping for government sponsored rescue for small business.

[Anonymous]

We had to shut down. Yesterday was our last day.

[Anonymous]

I know several small business owners who can survive 3-6 months because they kept cash aside for a rainy day. Curious as to those who closed...any reason you didn't plan for the same?

[Anonymous]

I work for a small home improvement/construction company that works inside people's homes. We are going on full furlough after tomorrow. Our owners decided that we could not continue to safely work. In the past we have had slow downs - this is the first time in 12 years that we have had to shutdown. Labor costs are our biggest expense, by far, and there is no revenue-generating work for our teams.

The company will be OK when we reopen in a month or two(??). And then we'll grind through another recession. We'll lose some folks during the furlough but it will be OK.
The survival strategy is to put the company on ice until we can get back to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a major investor ina few restaurants. Fortunately for me I have another business that is actually flourishing right now.

I had a teleconference with my partners on Sunday night. We shut both restaurants down effective Monday. Complete stop.

Employees were immediately eligible for unemployment at 60%. We are paying only the following expenses: insurance, utilities (which will be much lower), license renewals so when everything comes back we can immediately start. We notified landlord that we will not pay April (what are they going to do, not like another restaurant or anyone is looking at leasing space right now) and will reconvene with them April 15 and assess from there. I figure we can easily work out a payment plan with them. We’ve been there 6 years and while catastrophic this is a blip. We can limit monthly expenses without rent to $3K.

Partners without other income called mortgage companies and asked for deferment for April payments. I am sure it will be approved. Partners are only paying food, insurance and other necessities. They are paying for cell phone internet and cable/ Netflix since they are trapped at home. They will sort out the rest later. They will actually be increasing cash on hand albeit they will be not paying their utilities etc and will need to do so later

Presuming this is relatively short lived it won’t be catastrophic by any means.

Partners who only have income from restaurant

How can you just notify landlord that you will not pay April
How is your rental contract written?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a major investor ina few restaurants. Fortunately for me I have another business that is actually flourishing right now.

I had a teleconference with my partners on Sunday night. We shut both restaurants down effective Monday. Complete stop.

Employees were immediately eligible for unemployment at 60%. We are paying only the following expenses: insurance, utilities (which will be much lower), license renewals so when everything comes back we can immediately start. We notified landlord that we will not pay April (what are they going to do, not like another restaurant or anyone is looking at leasing space right now) and will reconvene with them April 15 and assess from there. I figure we can easily work out a payment plan with them. We’ve been there 6 years and while catastrophic this is a blip. We can limit monthly expenses without rent to $3K.

Partners without other income called mortgage companies and asked for deferment for April payments. I am sure it will be approved. Partners are only paying food, insurance and other necessities. They are paying for cell phone internet and cable/ Netflix since they are trapped at home. They will sort out the rest later. They will actually be increasing cash on hand albeit they will be not paying their utilities etc and will need to do so later

Presuming this is relatively short lived it won’t be catastrophic by any means.

Partners who only have income from restaurant

How can you just notify landlord that you will not pay April
How is your rental contract written?

NP. What is the landlord going to do? The pragmatic ones know there is no money coming in. If he sues, what can he hope to get? Plus having to spend expensive lawyer fees?

It is in everyone's interest to suspend rents for a few months. Everyone is losing money but it also means the landlord knows he hopefully still has a restaurant occupying the space when things reopen instead of a vacancy and more lost monthly revenues.

[Anonymous]

BI insurance is going to boom after this

[Anonymous]

Increase takeaway and delivery business

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work for a small home improvement/construction company that works inside people's homes. We are going on full furlough after tomorrow. Our owners decided that we could not continue to safely work. In the past we have had slow downs - this is the first time in 12 years that we have had to shutdown. Labor costs are our biggest expense, by far, and there is no revenue-generating work for our teams.

The company will be OK when we reopen in a month or two(??). And then we'll grind through another recession. We'll lose some folks during the furlough but it will be OK.
The survival strategy is to put the company on ice until we can get back to work.

It's also a strategy to allow everyone to sign up for unemployment right away while still having a tie to the company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a major investor ina few restaurants. Fortunately for me I have another business that is actually flourishing right now.

I had a teleconference with my partners on Sunday night. We shut both restaurants down effective Monday. Complete stop.

Employees were immediately eligible for unemployment at 60%. We are paying only the following expenses: insurance, utilities (which will be much lower), license renewals so when everything comes back we can immediately start. We notified landlord that we will not pay April (what are they going to do, not like another restaurant or anyone is looking at leasing space right now) and will reconvene with them April 15 and assess from there. I figure we can easily work out a payment plan with them. We’ve been there 6 years and while catastrophic this is a blip. We can limit monthly expenses without rent to $3K.

Partners without other income called mortgage companies and asked for deferment for April payments. I am sure it will be approved. Partners are only paying food, insurance and other necessities. They are paying for cell phone internet and cable/ Netflix since they are trapped at home. They will sort out the rest later. They will actually be increasing cash on hand albeit they will be not paying their utilities etc and will need to do so later

Presuming this is relatively short lived it won’t be catastrophic by any means.

Partners who only have income from restaurant

How can you just notify landlord that you will not pay April
How is your rental contract written?

NP. What is the landlord going to do? The pragmatic ones know there is no money coming in. If he sues, what can he hope to get? Plus having to spend expensive lawyer fees?

It is in everyone's interest to suspend rents for a few months. Everyone is losing money but it also means the landlord knows he hopefully still has a restaurant occupying the space when things reopen instead of a vacancy and more lost monthly revenues.

Well
Landlord could fall into hard times and be foreclosed, bankrupt
You will then have to get new business premises

Sounds like you could pay your rent but it is more convenient for you to not do so

Either way. The contract you signed must have some penalties for this