Hopefully today some more of the workers show up.
I think a lot of 'em are just very scared.
We have to do it. It's something that we must do because we
really just can't close.
The coronavirus Pandemic is putting America's 30 million
small businesses to the test.
From nail salons, to grocers, to restaurants.
They're all facing an existential threat.
Every day I wake up and I keep my fingers crossed that this
will end. I don't know what our future holds.
I don't really want to think about it.
A month of what some experts compared to a power blackout
has nearly halved economic activity.
One additional month could lead to the permanent loss of
one fourth of all U.S.
business establishments, equaling four trillion dollars in
revenue. For New York City, the Independent Budget Office
estimates that the virus could cost the city nearly 10
billion dollars in lost tax revenue.
That could be catastrophic for the cities and the entire
country's small businesses, who are the main drivers of
employment, innovation and growth.
The COVID-19 situation has really been hammering our small
businesses across the country.
But there are a number of businesses that haven't had to
shut their doors. Grocery stores need food, pharmacies need
drugs. Your Internet has to continue to work.
The water has to turn on when you turn the faucet.
Essential businesses are fortunate to stay open when most
can't. Most of our staff members are happy to have a job.
I mean, we're thankful for that, of course.
But then the second thing kicks in.
It's like all of us have families and our safety comes, you
know, as if not more important than a paycheck.
Keeping your doors open during a pandemic is anything but
straightforward, especially for small businesses.
It doesn't help that the 349 billion dollar loan program
for small businesses ran out in merely two weeks.
It remains to be seen that the new 484 billion dollar
relief package will get into the hands of those most in
need. This is probably the biggest leadership challenge any
small business person has ever faced.
When the orders come over next door to our restaurant, we're
the ones accepting them and putting them away and doing all
the work because we don't have a lot of staff.
Also, because we don't have a lot of orders.
We don't have a lot of money to pay the staff.
So it's just all kind of falling on to us.
If it last a few months like this, it's going to be very
difficult, it's going to be extremely difficult. It'll be
years before we fully understand the economic impact of the
coronavirus. While the lockdown continues, essential small
businesses in New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic,
are barely holding on.
The coronavirus, or the COVID-19 disease, has turned the
world upside down, nearly every state governor has ordered
businesses to temporarily shut down and residents to stay
home. This is not life as usual and accept it and realize
it and deal with it. More than 50,000 major retailers and
restaurants, and about 54 percent of America's 30.
2 million small businesses, were deemed non-essential and
told to close.
Though some states are cautiously considering reopening
parts of their economies.
The country is far from returning back to normal.
I had a gut feeling that things were going to change a
little bit. I actually spoke to a couple of my managers I
was telling them to stock up a little bit more on a dry good
that I thought there might be some kind of panic, but to be
quite very honest with you, not in my wildest dream I
thought it would go to this level.
What makes a business essential varies a bit depending on
the state. For example, in Arizona, golf courses are still
open. In Pennsylvania, medical marijuana dispensaries are
essential, but liquor stores are not.
And in Alabama, gun stores are considered too important to
be shut down. All states agree though, that grocery stores,
pharmacies and gas stations are absolutely necessary.
You kind of feel, you have to serve the country that it's
been good to you. You have to serve the neighbors that
have been good to you all these year.
So it comes in with that kind of sense of responsibility
that keeps me going.
I mean, I have been working now for almost 30 days
straight. I haven't taken a day off.
Mo Issa is the owner of Brooklyn Fair, a chain of three
grocery stores and a three Michelin starred restaurant
under the same name. Most three stores are considered
essential, as is his restaurant, but only for deliveries
and takeout, something for which his fine dining
establishment wasn't equipped.
It's something I take a lot of pride in and we had to close
it down, and I had to lay off quite a few people that
worked at the restaurant.
It's pretty sad.
It's usually very busy and beautiful but now it's
completely shut down. New York City, like the rest of the
country, is made up of small businesses.
98 percent of the more than 220,000 businesses employ less
than 100 people.
But during a crisis, being small comes with a host of
challenges. For example, large retailers like Wegmans or
Whole Foods have dedicated crisis management teams and
generally run on larger profit margins.
I'm a one man show kind of, basically I do it all.
So the challenge for a small guy like myself to do it and
do it right. It's extremely hard because of the resource.
I don't have the same deep pockets as they do.
Mo has increased his workers hourly wage from $15 to $17.
Still, he says he spends most of his days convincing
worried employees to come to work.
He's running three sizable grocery stores that he says
gross about 42 million dollars a year on nearly half of the
regular staff. It's about 6:15 in the morning, 6:20 going
to pick up the food from 37th street to take it to the
Brooklyn store because we had to close the kitchen in
Brooklyn store because we're short on employees.
The stores are doing more business volume wise, dollar wise
head counts has dropped a lot.
Before we were like at 250 to over 260.
Now we're running three stores like in about 150, 145.
It depends from day to day.
I lose two, three come back and every morning I just got to
deal with it. It's like whose coming, who's not coming?
If a McDonald's goes from having 40 workers to 36 workers,
well, it stays open.
If you run a small restaurant and you have eight workers
and you go to five or six workers, you might have a tough
time. Not too far from Mo's downtown Brooklyn store,
Leslie and Matt own a coffee shop and a burger restaurant.
This is not their first crisis.
A fire at the coffee shop in 2014 set them back for years.
But this pandemic is different.
After nearly all twelve employees said they were too scared
to work. They shut down the cafe.
We were open for the staff so that they could all get paid
and have a purpose and keep doing what they loved to do.
But when people started showing up it just didn't make
sense anymore to stay open.
This is our tiny kitchen.
We're just cranking out burgers, fries...
The couple estimate revenue to be around 40,000 for the
month of April, but 30 percent has to go to third party
delivery companies like Caviar and Uber Eats.
And with 30,000 in expenses between the two shops, they're
unlikely to break even.
It's extremely strenuous.
Bills don't go on pause.
Jonathan Goldstein and his brother are third generation
owners of Park Avenue Liquor Shop.
The store is nestled between bustling Grand Central and
Bryant Park. With no commercial business and nearly no foot
traffic. The business is down 75 to 80 percent.
They had to lay off more than half of the staff.
I don't think people want to be in midtown or in a crowded
part of the city. So we're missing that part of the
business. We're missing corporate business.
There are no parties, there are no staff meetings.
There's no after hours.
Let's say we have a good, four to six weeks before we have
to seriously look at the books and say if it's worthwhile.
Changes in spending habits is one of the most immediate
effects of the pandemic.
Spending in every category available has decreased except
for alcohol and groceries.
Not surprisingly, online sales have skyrocketed.
Mo's stores have had a similar trajectory.
He says the three stores used to earn 5,000 to 6,000
dollars a week. Today, they're generating nearly $200,000
in online sales. We're keeping people like almost up to 1
o'clock in the morning just filling in orders.
Some of them come in at 5:00 in the morning and we're doing
the best we can. We used to do it within a 24 hour window.
Now we expand the window like almost six days and we kind
of run it almost six days behind.
As we've reported before, the U.S.
is unlikely to run out of food.
But as the virus continues to spread to workers and
processing plants, warehouses and grocery stores, so have
concerns over the impact on the supply chain.
This could especially impact small, essential businesses.
When you have scarce resources and you have scarce time and
you're trying to set up priorities.
Having a large grocery store supplied, that can serve a lot
of people, maybe that's more important.
We are getting about 20 percent to 30 percent sometimes of
the orders that we order. Sometimes it just doesn't show up
because it's not like they don't want to do it.
They just don't have it. Plus, my suppliers' having the
same issue with labor as me.
Being small and essential also means you're at the shop
more. Mo, Leslie and Matt, and Jonathan spend their entire
days in their stores along with their frontline employees.
That goes a long way when you're dealing with a public
health crisis that's extremely contagious.
We've been driving one of our employees back and forth from
work every day because we don't want him on the trains and
we know that he needs to work.
I go to every store, every single day, six days a week, all
the time. I know their names.
I know their family.
I know their pain. I know what they're going through.
All businesses have shut their doors, but the bills are
still piling up. The Small Business Administration
launching a program.
In late March 2020, the government responded to the economic
havoc brought on by the coronavirus with the biggest relief
package in history. Three hundred and forty nine billion of
the 2 trillion is dedicated to small businesses.
That can be the saving grace for the many small, essential
and non-essential businesses who are holding on by a
thread. According to a survey by the National Federation of
Independent Business, as of April 9th, 2020, 70 percent of
small businesses had applied for help.
Numbers we're seeing are dramatic.
We are processing billions of dollars of loans an hour and
we are receiving and approving thousands and thousands of
applications a day.
The four temporary programs are meant to help small
businesses cover payroll and other expenses during the
pandemic. According to Bulger, lenders are supposed to
release the money within 10 days of government approval.
However, in New York City, as well as in many other
regions, relief has been lagging.
On the early morning of April 3rd, the first day of
applications. Leslie and Matt stayed up late to make sure
they would be ahead of the curve.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, 12:30 and we were like, this is
not happening. And then Friday, our banker reached out
again and said, no Friday they said we're not ready.
Monday we're going to have the forms ready so you guys can
start submitting. And then Monday, our bank was like kind
of a disaster also. Look, are there glitches?
Are we trying to work out the bugs as we're going through
it? Yes, because it is so new.
We're bringing on hundreds and hundreds of new lenders that
are just- who've never worked with the SBA- so yes there's
been tremendous challenges, but it's a 24/7 effort.
Less than two weeks after the program launched, it was
announced that the 349 billion dollars had run out,
according to a survey by the National Federation of
Independent Business. As of April 17th, 80 percent of
applicants hadn't received funds.
Leslie and Matt were among them.
The three hundred and fifty billion dollars for small
business. It's good only if it gets to the small businesses
in time. If it gets to them two weeks after they've gone
bankrupt, it's not good.
So the big issue is can you get the money to the right
small businesses soon enough?
But yet another attempt at relief is on the way.
President Trump is expected to sign a 484 billion dollar
spending package to bolster the economy, about 370 billion
dollars of that will be dedicated to small businesses.
It remains to be seen if business owners like Matt and
Leslie will get the relief they need this time around.
Meanwhile, small essential businesses will continue to play
an integral role in serving their communities.
Everything in life isn't learned, you learn something.
So this is a lesson to be learned from something like that.
That hopefully will make us all better when we come out of
it. But I would take, any day of the week I'll take, the
life I had before this than now.
I think the future for us.
It's, you know, still unknown.
If we don't get any kind of bail out.
It's a long time to get our foot in again, because who knows
how long this is going to go on for.
It can go on for another 18 months.
And we can't operate like that.
It's a big if, you know.
What do my brother and I do if we have to shut down.
What do we do you know, with the employees that are still
here? Something we're going to have to work through week by
week, month by month. And this is the best part of my day
when I get home to my family and I get a nice warm hug from
my daughter right after I get a good wash.