Atlanta restaurants learned lessons from the pandemic to survive the water crisis

To make up for lost revenue and avoid offering food for a weekend, Kitty Dare in Inman Park hosted a special event Monday — when the restaurant is normally closed and staff absent.

Fifth Group founder Steve Simon told me that the biggest challenge of the weekend’s water issues was a lack of communication from city leaders, which led them to “try to understand what was happening.” I think that’s what everyone ran into. We didn’t know what to expect or when to expect it.

The rapid troubleshooting carried out by restaurants amid chaos and confusion bears a striking resemblance to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. When a March 13, 2020 executive order declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency, all restaurants were required to close their dining rooms.

Restaurants have shifted to takeout, diversified with retail, and added online ordering platforms to their websites. Once Georgia businesses were allowed to reopen with on-site service, they had to follow a set of 39 arduous guidelines, some ambiguous and open to interpretation.

Operators made decisions based on sometimes conflicting information from public health experts and elected officials at the local, state and national levels.

When applying for financial assistance through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, small businesses weren’t sure how the process worked or whether their applications would be approved. Two weeks after the program launched, funds began to run out and the SBA stopped accepting new applications. The PPP loan debacle ensued for months.

Millions of unemployed food service workers across the country have found themselves waiting in line at food pantries and facing eviction notices. Many abandoned the industry altogether, leading to a labor shortage that still exists today.

Then and now, restaurants deserve more than a pat on the back for handling a crisis as best they can. That’s not what pays homeowners’ bills. “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” are not appropriate for servers, cooks, bartenders, baristas, hosts, cashiers and other employees who rely on hourly wages and tips to feed themselves and their families.

What will the answer be this time?

Help appears to be on the way for business owners. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced plans to create a financial relief fund to help businesses that suffered losses during the outage. According to Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman, “$5 million is the current number.”

“I’m hoping that within a few weeks there will be a very short application process and then Invest Atlanta will administer those funds,” Shipman said Wednesday as a guest on the ‘Political Georgia’ podcast. AJC.

Let’s hope that the process is not deja vu in PPP.

But what’s the lifeline for workers like Ayanna Fields, who juggles two jobs in the restaurant industry and whose shifts were canceled at both of her workplaces last weekend? Or Kavonda Byrd, a waitress at Sun in My Belly who earns $2.13 an hour and estimates she’s lost more than $200 in tips, or about a third of her weekly income?

Most of us wait until the weekend, because that’s when we make all our money,” Byrd told the AJC. “It was a big blow.”

It’s a sad reality that there are few safety nets for most food service workers, the backbone of the restaurant industry.

Several workers contacted Giving Kitchen, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that helps restaurant workers facing unexpected challenges.

“When you’re already in crisis, not much more can add up,” said Jen Hidinger-Kendrick, founder of Giving Kitchen. She said the organization has fielded calls from workers needing help with rent and utilities due to loss of income due to water outages.

She also encouraged the public to support restaurants during difficult times. “Please go visit them and tip extra, be kind and grateful to the staff who go out of their way to serve us.”

Giving Kitchen and friendly diners fill a gap that should be filled with common-sense public policy changes that would allow restaurant workers to go a week without pay.

It’s a lesson from COVID-19 that elected officials have yet to take to heart.

Ligaya Figueras is the food and dining editor and senior dining critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.