Over 100 bar and restaurant owners joined a virtual town hall on Thursday to ask questions and voice concerns as they continue through another week fighting against the depilating economic effects of the Coronavirus.
The roundtable was attended by Senator Richard Blumenthal and moderated by Scott Dolch, the executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association.
After the Zoom meeting Dolch said no industry had been hit harder than the restaurant industry, “to say the least, our restaurants are in crisis,” Dolch said but added he felt our political leaders were listening and taking their message to Washington. “We have been working with the Governor’s office as much as we can but there is a big piece on the Federal side,” Dolch said.
While the hurdles for restaurant owners are numerous, Phil Barnett, who is an owning partner of Wood ’N Tap restaurants said, “we will take on any challenge at this point — we owe it to our guests and we owe it to our staff.”
Dolch mentioned that around 89,000 restaurant employees have lost their jobs in the state since the COVID-19 crisis began and it’s estimated that bars and restaurants are somewhere around 845 million dollars in lost revenue.
While Dolch said that the industry faces a new normal he is optimistic that state bars and restaurants will make a come back in due time, “restaurants touch everybody, they are the backbone and the core of our communities.”