GREAT BARRINGTON — It already wasn’t going so well for Jeffrey Caminiti’s restaurant when he learned that a federal bailout fund had run out of money.
Emergency restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic forced him to shut down 20 Railroad Trattoria & Pub in Great Barrington. He went through two rounds of federal relief loans as he reopened twice and found expenses overtaking revenue. He is open fully now, but he says he is struggling, and the relief grants that were supposed to help restaurant owners stay afloat — grants, he noted, that initially prioritized women, people of color and veterans before this got challenged in court — didn’t come through.
“I got a notice that they ran out of money,” he said. “The funds diminished very rapidly because there’s just so many people in need.”
Caminiti’s was one of 278,000 applications in the spring to the Small Business Administration for some of the $28.6 billion in federal Restaurant Revitalization Fund money. The money is part of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan for a range of businesses, including food trucks, bars, bakeries and wineries, to offset pandemic-related revenue losses of up to $10 million.
Applications totaled $72 billion, and the agency gave grants to 101,004 businesses. Massachusetts businesses received nearly $1 billion, but it wasn’t nearly enough — more than $43 billion hasn’t been allocated to all the applicants who qualified, and the restaurant industry is making a push to reload the money as it reels from a messy distribution that created haves and have-nots.
On July 9, the SBA released a list of Restaurant Revitalization Fund grant recipients. In Berkshire County, 68 businesses in 14 cities and towns received a total of $14.46 million.
The highest grant, $1,723,095, went to Mezze Bistro + Bar in Williamstown. Panda Garden in Lee received the least, at $5,208.
Of three recipients in Great Barrington, The Well received the most money, at $458,863; in Lenox, Haven got $589,428, and Arizona Pizza got two separate grants totaling $828,890. Arizona Pizza owner Bill Stevens did not respond to calls seeking comment about this.
Staying alive
To some Berkshire restaurateurs, the application portal was like a spin of the roulette wheel.
“We applied at 12:05, and the application process started at noon,” said Emily Irwin, who with her husband, Josh Irwin, own Cantina 229 in New Marlborough, and MoonCloud in Great Barrington, which the couple owns with Billy Jack Paul. It was too late — they soon learned that the Restaurant Revitalization Fund had been exhausted. Their future, she added, is shaky.
“It doesn’t feel very optimistic,” she said. “I don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
Josh Irwin said they have worked hard just to keep the businesses alive. Cantina had reopened, then shut down again in June. The restaurant pivoted and now instead offers their own barbeque from a food truck on the property.
And MoonCloud’s tiny space made it possible to open only when the weather turned warm, and the restrictions were eased and lifted.
“Nobody took home any money,” he said. “The grant certainly would have given us a little buffer … a cushion to keep pushing through and not worry about rent.”
Josh Irwin explained that the problems spiraled upon reopening. Restaurants are dealing with worker shortages, supply increases — a recent 250 percent jump in baby back rib prices, for example — and frustrated customers who Irwin believes won’t pay substantially more for meals to make up for these costs, including the increase in worker pay.
“Do you think anybody is going to buy a $74 rack of ribs?” he asked. “No way.”
At Bizen Gourmet Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar in Great Barrington, owner Michael Marcus still is dealing with cost increases and supply issues. He received a federal loan to help him through 2020, but didn’t apply for a Restaurant Revitalization Fund grant because Bizen switched to takeout immediately when the pandemic began.
“We stayed open and kept our employees on, but we did too well to qualify for their funding,” he said. “There were other restaurants that had to close, and they needed it more than we did.”
Moe’s Tavern in Lee is one, and owner Josh Cohen is grateful to have received his $269,224 grant last month. Cohen had to shut down completely last year because Moe’s doesn’t serve food.
“After 15 months out of business, paying full bills, this is going to be a huge help to pay off everything that I had to basically borrow from myself to live the year,” he said, noting that he also had to borrow from family, whom he since has repaid. The grant will help him make any improvements for future restrictions, should he need to, and to continue paying competitive wages.
“I haven’t spent it yet, but it’s a great safety net,” he said. “I couldn’t survive another 15-month shutdown.”
