Operations

California’s energy companies funding COVID-19-affected restaurants

Provided

April 2, 2021

The California Restaurant Foundation has received more than $1.25 million from SoCalGas, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Diego Gas and Electric and and others to launch the Resilience Fund. The fund will provide grants of up to $3,500 to single-unit restaurants across California, with priority given to woman- and person of color-owned restaurants, Hilda L. Solis, Supervisor to the First District of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in a company press release.

"The Resilience Fund will provide critical financial support to our hardest hit small businesses, many of which are owned and operated by women and people of color," she said. "Throughout the pandemic, we have seen the economic impact across the County, leading to greater job loss and reduced hours resulting in less pay for workers. The Resilience Fund will help our small businesses retain their workers and help ease the economic burden of the pandemic as we rebuild for a better tomorrow."

The grants will go toward payroll and related expenses to allow operators to use funds for other expenses such as rent, technology upgrades and outdoor dining retrofitting. Additionally, restaurants receiving the grant may access resources to help improve their business for the long term.

Over the past year, through the non-profit's Restaurants Care program, CRF has helped more than 1,200 restaurant workers, their families and businesses and believes that by investing in the lasting success of these restaurants, we can also preserve jobs and communities throughout California.

"What's really unique about our Resilience Fund is that it supports the business as well as individual restaurant workers," Alycia Harshfield, executive director of the California Restaurant Foundation, said in the release. "a portion of the funds raised will provide grants for cooks, servers, dishwashers and more who face unforeseen hardship and have nowhere else to turn and the rest will go to the restaurant. So yes, we're helping restaurants keep their crew on payroll, while also offering a safety net for when things get tough. While we're delighted to see restaurants opening up and COVID cases drop, the recovery will take years and we're doing what we can to help."

Resilience Fund applications will be open from April 11-18, 2021 and can be found at www.restaurantscare.org/resilience.

Grants will be available to single-unit, California-based restaurants in the following counties: Alameda, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Joaquin with a staff of 50 or fewer employees. To qualify, the restaurant must currently be open and have experienced a revenue loss of at least 20% from 2019-2020. Priority will be given to restaurants owned by women and people of color.

"There's a long road to recovery for small businesses, especially restaurants," SoCalGas President Maryam Brown said in the release "With these grants, our goal is to help independent restaurant owners who have been hit hardest by the pandemic and support local restaurant workers."