Pandemic Relief for COVID-19 funding from the Restaurant Revitalization Act has released $28.6 billion. In a Southern state and city, restaurants and bars got over a billion dollars in aid. This is according to new data that was released by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In fact, some of the 556 grants went to Austin restaurants. The dollar amounts ranged from over $8 million to just $1,553.
American Rescue Plan Stimulus Bill
Signed into law on March 2021, this third round of funding is part of the American Rescue Plan stimulus bill. The applications for the grants, which were available for a maximum of $10 million, did open on May 3. In fact, they closed on June 30 after the fund ran out of money. The government organization overseeing the program, the U.S. Small Business Administration did, in fact, receive 18,461 grant requests from Texas restaurants. In fact, they approved only 6,406 grants that totaled $1,674,864,564. That is considered an acceptance rate of approximately 35 percent. If used by March 2023, the grants do not have to be paid back by restaurant owners for qualifying expenses.
Pandemic Relief Grants for Restaurants
The Texas Restaurant Group Inc. was the recipient of the largest Austin grant. They are a franchisee of Panera Bread. The expected local major restaurant groups include: McGuire Moorman received $3 million for Lambert’s. As well as $1.6 million for its other restaurants. The New Waterloo (that includes La Condesa) got $2.6 million. $3.6 million combined went to the Kung Fu Saloon. In fact, there are also many other restaurants with catering businesses, like Contigo and the Peached Tortilla, which makes sense because these events were on hold.
Ping-Pong Bar
There is another recipient which was called Spin Austin LLC. It is the local location of the national ping-pong bar chain Spin. Moreover, it turns out that the bar closed around the latter half of 2020. In fact, the parent company did sell its ownership interest in the Austin location earlier this January.
