Restaurants across northern Michigan remain either closed or offering carry out only service amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Many have also applied for finding through the Paycheck Protection Program, but that’s been a struggle for some.
Andre Bushell is co-owner of the Foundry Bar and Grill in East Jordan and Dickey’s Barbeque Pit in Traverse City. Both locations have been hit hard after going to take out only.
“I think with like every restaurant you have very thin margins and I think the best restaurants could have been operating great. But we lost about 80 percent of our total revenue and loosing 80 percent with a facility that’s 70,000 square feet, that’s a huge impact,” said Bushell.
That’s why Bushell applied for funding through the Paycheck Protection Program. But finding out the status of his application, along with securing money from the program has been frustrating.
“Application wise it was a 10 minute application, informed wise it wasn’t hard to get the information together. But the fulfilment and the delivery of it, it’s left us unknown if we’re going to be here two weeks from today. There’s people that work for me that have kids, not thousands, but I have 20 that work for me that have families and I want to make sure a job is here for them after this,” said Bushell.
A has also been set up to help Bushell. He says in the meantime he’ll continue doing what he can to secure funding from the Paycheck Protection Program.
“In the heart of the summer I employ 70 people at this one restaurant and it would be very devastating for the only newer restaurant to be closed for the year just because of a natural disaster that we could have worked a little harder for the small guys in the small communities,” said Bushell.
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