Episode 11: Golden Gate Restaurant Association

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guest: Laurie Thomas, Executive Director, Golden Gate Restaurant Association

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host. 

Series Introduction: This episode is part of a series of interviews we conducted through our participation in the Bay Area Video Coalition’s TV Show titled San Francisco Nonprofits Spotlight. The interviews were conducted via Zoom from April to June 2020 during the height of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Shelter in Place requirements. The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community.  Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the pandemic.  

Show Guest Laurie: So, we're in a situation where, we were at the early part of the year. We'd paid a lot of the year on bills. And then, as I like to say, that music just stopped and none of us me included are prepared for the music, just stopping, like boom, you know, it's slowed down. And then we had to shut the doors completely, the night of March 16th, the uh shelter in place went into effect at midnight that night.    

Episode Intro - Show Host George: In this episode we feature the voice of Laurie Thomas, the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has been around since 1936 and has supported the efforts of local small business owners to address such issues as collective labor agreements, racketeering and food rationing during World War Two. Over the decades the association helped its members market their restaurants through creating an annual Dining Guide and setting up a purchasing guide along with group insurance and workers compensation programs. The Association’s education program offers the only Food Safety training of its kind in the State of California by partnering with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and is a Certified Test Site Administrator with the National Registry of Food Safety Professionals along with proctoring the Food Manager Certification Exam. 

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via zoom by Lori Thomas, the executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. Thank you for being here, Laurie.  

Show Guest Laurie: You're welcome. Thank you for asking.  

George: So, I'd like to begin with providing just a quick overview of what the golden gate restaurant associations relationship is with restaurants in San Francisco? 

Laurie: Well, we are really, I think, ah longtime advocate of the restaurant community. not only in San Francisco, but folks in the East Bay or South Bay or North Bay are welcome to be members. We advocate for basically the survival and for restaurants to thrive. So, we've been around since 1936. It's a long time. I've been the executive director since January, but I was on the board for the prior 13 years.  

George: And Lori, how has the COVID-19 epidemic impacted, restaurants? You're a restaurateur yourself. How is, the COVID-19 really impacting the survival of our small business owners? 

Laurie: Well, it's, it's been just devastating to the industry. Already the restaurant industry in San Francisco was under a lot of economic pressure and we saw in 2019, 40% more closures than opening, which was already a warning sign. The cost of living as well as a lot of other things in the cost of the restaurants had gotten really high. 

So, we're in a situation where we were at the early part of the year. We'd paid a lot of the year on bills. And then, as I like to say, that music just stopped and none of us me included are prepared for the music, just stopping, like boom, you know, it's slowed down. And then we had to shut the doors completely, the night of March 16th, the uh shelter in place went into effect at midnight that night.  

George: How has the um association itself, been working, with both City Hall and your restaurant, members, I mean, you have a small staff, it's you and two other people  

Laurie: That's correct two amazing women that work with me and we're very, you know, productive, we're small and productive. 

George: You had mentioned earlier that you had opened up the association membership to anyone?  

Laurie: We stopped charging any sort of, member dues. Certainly, if you can afford to pay them, we appreciate it. Because as of right now, we have no income coming into the organization. It's a 501C6, which is a nonprofit trade organization. So, anybody that can afford to pay dues. We'll take 'em, but for people that are under financial stress, like most of our restaurant members we've extended a free membership. Right now, we're thinking through probably September. We haven't officially made that decision yet, but that's what we're leaning towards. 

And also, what we've done is opened up our Facebook member group to anybody that wants to join. And that's why we're posting real-time updates along with Twitter. And then trying to send as much as needed, but usually at a minimum three detailed email blasts with links to all the information. So, we've really, tried to be ah communicating as quickly and as clearly as possible, everything that's been going on.  

George: With the whole close-down, of the economy, and then now trying to come back in different phases and the Mayor just rolling out her second phase, could you share with the audience a little bit about, you know, where you see, uh, restaurants coming back, alive and people can actually participate and help?

Laurie: So right now, the only restaurants that are open are those doing takeout delivery or helping feed those in need, like the homeless or the first responders. There are some that have pivoted from like Michelin Star restaurants to just feeding those folks in need, working through SF New Deal, which is a phenomenal foundation that's helping partner those groups together and provide some funding.  

So, the next kind of critical date, and we're hoping it doesn't get pushed out now with all of the events of last weekend and the curfew situation, but we're anticipating that we can open for outside dining on June 15th. Which is what is less than two weeks from today, right? So close to two weeks from today. And that hopefully will let people not only seat where they had permitted seating before but taking advantage of what the city announced recently called the Shared Spaces Program.  

And we're still working out the details. I sit on the SF Economic Recovery Task Force and were working with different members in the City and MTA and different business organizations, trying to come up with some ways to, make that feasible, to leverage public spaces like parking spaces or shared streets, or maybe private spaces next to you, as long as the other owners agreed, that sort of thing. So that's super exciting.  

George: And Laurie you been a longtime restaurateur here in San Francisco and I think, people kind of almost take it, for granted that the restaurants are in there, commercial corridors and your communities, et cetera. We're known as our kind of a culinary capital, especially in Northern California. What would you say, over the, you know, many years here in San Francisco has been the biggest impact of restaurants on our community?  

Laurie: Well, my newest restaurant, which is 14 years old, is its sort of named after this concept. It's called Terzo, which means third in Italian. And that's the third space. That's not your home or work, but it's a community gathering space and really restaurants form the backbone of community for so many people.  You know, we've seen families grow up at Rose's cafe and Terzo, we've seen people you know, meet and get married.  

And restaurants really have always been about celebration of, life. And whether it's a positive or negative thing you're trying to overcome. They're really critical for a healthy city slash urban environment. And, I don't think that we should take any of them for granted anymore.  

George: Given the situation, a lot of restaurants have been forced to shut down and trying to struggle to come back. How can people who are watching or listening to this, help their local restaurants in their neighborhood and or restaurants at large in San Francisco?  

Laurie: Yeah, so a couple of things. So certainly, order takeout if you're healthy and if you can make it, go to the restaurant, pay and pick it up and go home or go to a park or wherever, that's preferable. All the money stays in the hands of the restaurant. You're not paying a commission for the food to get to you. That's first and foremost, I think a lot of restaurants, did go fund me campaigns because it was a way where they could get support from the community that supports us. And then all of us, most of us anyway.

Pay those funds out to their workers, especially to help folks that maybe couldn't take advantage of the unemployment insurance options in our community. Unfortunately, we have that concern. So, I think that was really a big win. I know that our customers were super supportive, and we were able to, write significant checks to all of our employees. So that was one good way to do it.  

The other way is some folks are doing a gift cards, whether they're donation type things like a war bond, kind of idea where you, buy a bond and then It doesn't turn out that that place is around whatever, it was, a donation, people are doing that. And then, I think going forward when we can do dine out, I know it's going to be a little cold in San Francisco, but if everyone can sort of tough it out and go sit on the patios and try to support the local restaurants, that'd be great.  

And then on a last note, I think, being willing to support the restaurants and put your money where your mouth is, is important. And I think you're going to see prices go up. We've all lost a lot of money and costs are gone up. You've seen the food costs has already gone up. So just to cover the food costs alone, but to continue to try to operate, I think you are going to see some price increases. 

George: In our prior conversation, the association is not a, nonprofit.  

Laurie: We are a nonprofit, but we're a trade nonprofit, not a charitable nonprofit.  

George: Right? So, people can't make a donation to the Golden Gate restaurant Association, for example? 

Laurie: They could, but it would not be deductible right now. So, what we're going to try to focus on is we realized that we do have a scholarship organization, a 501C3. Three that's a scholarship, but that we can't really pivot. It has to stay in the scholarship realm. So, what we're going to try to do is focus on developing a 501C3 for future disasters, if you will so we have a way to do that.  

You know, I would say the city's done a really good job of establishing the Give to San Francisco Fund. And there's three pillars to that fund. And the third pillar or arm of that is to support small businesses and workers. And so, if folks are still looking to write a check, they can do that. They can go to Give to San Francisco and do it that way. That's one thing that's in existence and that's been helpful locally.  

George: What we also talked about was the idea that possibly the federal government might come up with another round of PPP that conceivably, business associations could go, after for funding. 

Laurie: Yeah. So, the Feds, we need money from the Feds, everybody, write your senators, particularly the Republican senators and tell them to vote for what the house just approved last week, which is, part of uh the Cares Act. And that was a well-meaning plan that was passed bipartisan what, like a month ago now that provided for funds. The first tranche, a lot of us didn't get them, but the second tranche, more small businesses got them. And some of the larger chains pulled back gave the money back so those funds had problems for restaurants.

Because in order to get the full forgivability of the loan, you had to bring everybody back to the same level of employment within eight weeks. And many of us are still closed, particularly in New York and San Francisco. Right. And LA is just starting to open. So, you couldn't really bring anybody back, right. And 75% of that loan had to be spent on bringing people back to that same level.  

So, it wasn't really, as, usable as a lot of people need it. So, what this fix does is extends that period to 24 weeks. It turns the loan into a five-year loan versus a two-year loan, and it would allow you to spend more of that money on, rent for example. But the Senate has to that up and approve that and we'll see what happens.  

George: That was great insight. Final question what would you hope that would come out of this really horrible situation for the restaurant industry in San Francisco?  

Laurie: I think that we're already seeing some positives. I mean, I've certainly have developed some amazing relationships with people in our hospitality, uh, different trade organizations, with people in the city and city government, and all different areas. I've met different people that I've never knew before that have become, you know, friends and colleagues. 

And so that is really been an amazing 90 days. And also, we've seen the restaurant community come together in a way that we've never seen it come before everybody's been sort of tunnel vision doing their own thing, you know, and like, Oh, I'm a Michelin star restaurant, or I'm a fast food restaurant. And now we're like, all one family. Right. And so that's been amazing. And I have seen that at a national level with the Independent Restaurant Coalition that Tom Colicchio is a co-founder of, and that I've been lucky enough to sit on the calls now, three times a week, and listen to what's going on. And that's been a national voice.  

We have also been working locally closely with, another group called the Bay Area, Hospitality Coalition, a group of different chefs, some of the top chefs in the city and we're all working together. And so that is. I don't want to say it's a first, but it was, it's a very unusual situation. Somebody said it best on the call the other day. They said, I’ve found my tribe. Like, it's so nice to like, know that you're in it together. So that's been amazing. That's been really positive. And I hope out of this, the city is seeing the devastating effect of not having a hospitality sector. 

What happens when the hotels are closed? When we don't have the restaurants functioning, you know, what does that mean for life in the city? And I think this is going to become more of an urban planning exercise. Where we all need to decide, how do we support the businesses? There's been a lot of costs that have been sort of piling on for a while, and we need to take a step back and say, you know, what works for a small business, with a lot of employees versus what works for a large business with higher margins. It's not apples to apples. It's a very different equation. And so, we might have to make some policy decisions about how to support restaurants. Who have classically no margin. 

George: Thank you, Lori. That was a, great insights there. Want to thank you again for sharing your and your team's work. We'll make sure all your information is available to all of our viewers and listeners as well.

Laurie: We really appreciate everybody's support and. We want to keep as many restaurants viable as possible. That's our goal reopen as many and let them stay reopened. Right. Let's reopen and let's stay open. That's the goal.  

George: Which requires everybody in the community to rally around all of their favorite places and new places to discover. 

Laurie: Yes, definitely. And I appreciate the opportunity to keep sharing what's going on and we're here. If anybody has questions. 

George: Well, thank you, Lori. Stay safe out there and good luck with the reopening of both, your own restaurants and the association.  

Laurie: Thank you very much. Have a good day.  

George: All right. You too.  

Episode Outro - Show Host George: That’s it for this episode of voices of the community. You have been listening to the voice of Laurie Thomas the Executive Director Golden Gate Restaurant Association. According to data from the California Department of Public Health, 40 percent of health permits issued for San Francisco restaurants closed in 2019. So, going into the COVID-19 pandemic the financial health of San Francisco Restaurants were already sick from the years of combined rising costs of rents and additional City taxes.  

The COVID-19 pandemic may be the final blow for many small restaurant operators. From the initial shutdowns in the spring, with many restaurants trying to survive by offering only delivery and takeout, which included high fees from delivery service apps and then the phased re-opening with only 50% seating outdoors, and now that reopening being rolled back we could see as high as 50 Percent of restaurants not coming back from the pandemic according to estimates from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. 

Series Outro: We hope that you have enjoyed the insights, points of view and personal stories from the voices of change makers and their nonprofits featured in the series. To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofit and staff members, featured in this episode please go to my web site georgekoster.com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to this episode. Please consider a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members. 

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada as well as the wonderful team at Bay Area Video Coalition. Go to www.bavc.org to find out more about Bay Area Video Coalition’s services. To listen to our next episode in this series and to our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, please go to georgekoster.com. While you are on our website please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows like this. Please rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and share this story with your friends. Follow us on twitter @georgekoster and please email us at George @georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening. 

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