Since the CARES Act passed on March 27, restaurant owners have been working to file paperwork to apply for the Paycheck Protection Program, a forgivable loan meant to enable small businesses to continue paying their staff. Businesses who use the funds for basic operating expenses, such as rent, utilities, and payroll, can have 100 percent of the loan forgiven. However, the process hasn’t been easy for everyone. We’re asking a series of business owners how and when they got their loans, and how they plan to use them. To kick off the series, we spoke to Jon Dressler, one of the city’s most successful restaurateurs and owner of five restaurants under the Rare Roots Hospitality name: Dogwood Southern Table, two locations of Dressler’s, Fin & Fino, and The Porter’s House. —Kristen Wile

Unpretentious Palate: When did you apply for the Payroll Protection Program?
Jon Dressler: My applications went in Monday a week ago (April 6).

UP: How much did you apply for, and which bank did you apply with?
JD: I applied for the maximum amount allowable, which was two and a half times monthly payroll. I put all five of them through Aquesta Bank. They’ve done a phenomenal job. Reason 342 why small businesses should bank with community banks and not big banks.

UP: Do you have an idea of when you anticipate receiving your funds?
JD: I’m hoping today. My applications have been submitted. The process for a bank, that’s versed, which they all should be, and ready, which they all should be, and sufficiently man-powered, which they all should be, should be very simple. I mean, it’s the easiest application process in the history of mankind. It’s, ‘What’s your monthly payroll, and what’s two-and-a-half times that amount?’

UP: How do you plan on using the funds?
JD: Payroll, and capital reserves for when we reopen.

UP: How much of it do you anticipate being forgiven?
JD: Well, whatever. 100 percent of what’s in the parameters, because we’ll certainly stick to the parameters and make sure that we’re doing everything right on the front side, on the back side. The capital reserves won’t be forgiven; that will become a loan.

UP: When will your staff begin getting paid again?
JD: Oh, as soon as we can. No one’s gone anywhere. It’s just a matter of processing payroll. We’ll do it as soon as possible after funding. I don’t know what post funding looks like. I don’t know if it’s, you know, two days to get the money in the account to sign paperwork. I don’t know what that is.

UP: While the restaurant remains closed, what do you plan on having staff doing in that time?
JD: Enjoy their family time or their time of reflection.

UP: You recently stopped doing take-out food. How did the PPP loan impact your decision to continue doing takeout and delivery?
JD: My promise to my people was to feed them and reopen the restaurant. The boys and girls were growing increasingly uncomfortable in the restaurants. From the beginning, I didn’t require anyone to be in a restaurant. It was strictly a voluntary operation. So if they felt uncomfortable, they just needed to raise their hand. And if we needed to close one restaurant by one restaurant, that was fine. But I just felt it appropriate at this time to discontinue the operation. And the impending PPP money certainly made that decision easier, but that decision would have been made either way.

UP: What will happen if, come June 30th when all of the PPP requirements have to be met, restaurants can’t re-open?
JD: Then we’ll encourage people, as I did several weeks ago, to file unemployment, re-file unemployment. We’ll just kind of wait and see what happens with that. There may be another round of funding. I don’t know the answers to those questions. Ask me June 25th. But actually, it’s not technically the deadline. The deadline for each person is eight weeks after you get funded.

UP: Are there any concerns you have about the terms of the loan?
JD: No, not at all. I mean, the terms are stated. Whatever unforgivable amount that you either don’t comply with or choose to take as a loan, it’s 24 months at 1 percent with 6 months of no payments and it will then go on an 18 month amortization.

UP: Do you have any concerns about like getting what you believe to be forgiven actually forgiven?
JD: Zero.

UP: Does this brighten the outlook for restaurants, or do you still think a lot of restaurants will not make it through the shutdown?
JD: There’s three guys in this scenario. There’s the guy that was struggling to begin with. He’s probably not going to make it to the other side. There was the guy that keeps low balances in the bank. And they’re not going to make it for six to 12 months after we come out of post-COVID, and then there’s the guys who are well positioned who will be able to weather the six to twelve month storm and be able to stand.

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