COVID Recovery Plan Outlined For NYC's Restaurants

NEW YORK CITY —When New York's governor Kathy Hochul appeared in Brooklyn Monday to launch the $25 million Restaurant Resiliency Program, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance Andrew Rigie was at her side.

The program aims to provide much-needed relief to the industry as it tries to recover from the ravages of the 18-month pandemic and is aimed to dovetail with the Nourish New York initiative which gives funding to food banks and emergency food providers so that they can offer meals from restaurants to families in need.

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“This legislation offers a creative and thoughtful way to support food-insecure New Yorkers with access to hot food and nourishment from restaurants," Rigie said at the Brownsville Recreation Center signing, "while also providing relief to the those same restaurants, most of which are small businesses, that have been financially devastated by the pandemic and are struggling to recover."

Last Friday, Rigie took time to explain his vision for how the restaurant industry can best and most quickly recover from the financial free-fall of last year's lockdown.

"The restaurant industry is vital to the economic fabric of the city," Rigie told Patch, "and the pandemic completely devastated the industry.

"Prior to the outbreak, there were 25,000 restaurants throughout the five boroughs. None still knows exactly how many were lost, but estimates are in the thousands. So the most important thing needed right now is ongoing support, because 120,000 jobs were lost over the last year-and-a-half."

As he sees it, a full recovery requires action on a grand scale.

"At the national level," he says, "we need the federal government to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Something like 65 percent of those who applied for assistance were turned away when grant funding was exhausted because of the pandemic. And it had been a $28.6 billion program structured specifically for the restaurant industry. It was a straight grant program to help restaurants pay for rent payroll, products, and service providers to try to stabilize the industry and it's been effectively shut down."

Congress is considering what moves to make to replenish the bill, he says. But, according to a report issued three weeks ago by the Independent Restaurant Coalition, some 82 percent of independent restaurants believe they may close permanently without a refill of the fund.

"Frankly, it's going to need more Republican support, and it really is a bipartisan bill," he maintains. "In order for the country's economy to recover, our nation's restaurants must be at the core of that recovery."

As you might expect for the leader of a non-profit organization lobbying on behalf of restaurateurs, Rigie is a shameless booster.

"Beyond being part of the economic fabric of America, restaurants are also an integral part of a broader economic ecosystem that includes fishermen, farmers, the people who repair our equipment when it breaks down and the sales reps we buy our beer from, as well as the staff," he said.

So while he has one hand out to federal legislators seeking assistance, his other is reaching out to local authorities who are in a position to help here in New York's five boroughs.

"At a city level," says Rigie, "what we're working on is making the outdoor dining program that was established during the pandemic permanent. And in New York City, you have to be vaccinated to eat indoors; but if you're unvaccinated, you can only eat outdoors. It's helped transform the city's streetscape."

Right now, he says, the goal is "to provide as much help as we can anywhere possible."