Last month, the NYC Hospitality Alliance joined Majority Leader Schumer at a press conference outlining the plan for dedicated financial relief to support our city and nation’s struggling restaurants and bars. Today, the U.S. Senate passed the American Rescue Plan, which includes $28.6 billion for dedicated restaurant relief to help save countless small businesses and employees. This is an incredibly important milestone to get grants to restaurants to help them pay rent, payroll, vendor expenses and more. The rescue plan will now be sent to the House of Representatives, which is expected to pass it, and then it will go to President Biden who will sign it into law. If you have a moment, send a shout out to Andrew Rigie (@AndrewRigie) of the Hospitality Alliance and Senator Schumer (@SenSchumer), for fighting so hard for this critically important restaurant industry support. Further updates to come but here are some high-level points of the restaurant relief fund:
Grant Maximum – $10 million per restaurant group, $5 million per individual restaurant.
Eligible Expenses – Payroll and benefits, mortgage, rent, utilities, maintenance, supplies including protective equipment and cleaning materials, food, operational expenses, covered supplier costs as defined by the SBA under the PPP program, sick leave, and any other expenses deemed essential by the Administrator.
Covered Period – Grants can be spent on eligible expenses from 2/15/20 through 12/31/21 and the Administrator may extend the period through two years from enactment if conditions warrant.