This is whats available to you right now. with Claire Crowell

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now, here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello, Restaurant World, and welcome back to Nashville Restaurant Radio. I was listening to the radio this morning, Sirius XM, The Highway, and I was listening to the Stormy Warren show, and I've been listening to a lot of country recently. I feel inspired by some of the songs, some of the music. It's really been speaking to me. So one of the things he said today was, are you going to stay in your cocoon or are you going to become a butterfly? And I thought, where's he going with this? And I'm paraphrasing. And he said, through all this, we're going to have, we're going to be faced with decisions. What are you going to do? Will you start working out?

01:02Will you start praying? Will you start hiking? Will you start meditation? Will you read books? Are you going to come out of this a whole different person? Are you going to come out of this thing completely rejuvenized and changed? Or are you going to stay in your cocoon? I think this world's going to see a ton of butterflies after this. I think people are going to get in there. They're going to hunker down. They're going to make the best out of these things. I think we're seeing it right now. We saw it in Italy. I'm sure you've seen the viral video of dolphins coming back to the canals in Venice. There's fish. Swans are coming back. The environmental impact of everybody staying home, I think it's going to be amazing. I think that there's something that's going to happen in this world. There's going to be kind of a reset, and this is pretty exciting. I know what I want to do. I know I want to come out of this thing a better version of myself. I don't know what that looks like, and I just know right now the only thing that you can change, you have these decisions that are going to be put in front of you every single day, and you decide. Nobody decides for you. You decide what you're going to do going forward, and you have that ability, and it's pretty special. So today's episode, we're going to be speaking with Claire Crowell, and she is going to let us know what you can be doing right now, what assistance is available, who you can contact to help voice your opinion, all of that stuff. So that begins right now. All right, so welcome back to Nashville Restaurant Radio. I'm here with Claire Crowell, and Claire is the COO of A. Marshall Hospitality. She's the co-owner of Hattie Jane's Creamery. She's the former president of the Nashville Originals.

02:51She is a board member for La Dame Escoffier Nashville, which is an organization for women in the hospitality industry. Claire, how are you doing today? We're, you know, all things considered, doing pretty good today. It's been a rough week. I think that you're not alone in that feeling whatsoever. I wanted to put together a podcast today for everybody in this industry who's hurting, who's feeling it and doesn't know what to do. And I think the biggest thing that you can see out there right now is everybody wanting to know, what do I do? I don't know what to do. So I'll send an email that you started at Google Doc that had a bunch of information about what people can do, what assistance is out there. If you're a restaurant worker, or if you're a small business owner, if you're a restaurant owner, and I thought getting you on the phone to talk about what this, what people's opportunities are would be great. And thank you so much for joining me today. So so what's out there? Well, first of all, thank you so much for thinking of us. And I'm glad for this information sitting out there. There are a few things, speaking directly to restaurant workers that may have been laid off during this time. And my heart is just broken for everybody out there, because frankly, unemployment isn't going to cut it. The maximum payout is $2.75 a week.

04:16And that's going to cover all the bills. So we're trying to keep track of what assistance out there. I know for our company, we use a tool called Restaurant 365, so we're blasting out anything that comes our way to all of our employees. But I wanted to share this also. So there are a few things, employee resources, and these are items that we have come across our way. We're not really sure what's available and what applies for each one, but it's worth checking out and applying if you need assistance. So the first one is called Southern Smoke Foundation. It is a fund for hospitality employees that for unforeseen expenses not covered by insurance, which a lot of that is going around right now. So for that, you can go to southernsmoke.org for more information there. The second one is Golden Rule Charity. It's grants for financial assistance for hospitality employees.

05:18And you just go to goldenrulecharity.org and check out that application there. One that's big here in Nashville is CORE, Children of Restaurant Employees. This one is typically intended for restaurant employees who maybe get hurt and can't provide for their families, but there may be some assistance happening there and being enacted. So it's corecoregives.org. And then there's this one that was sent to me yesterday called Bartender Emergency Assistant Program. You don't have to be a member. It's a membership organization. You don't have to be a member to apply and you don't have to be a bartender. So this one's a little bit more difficult, but it's U.S. as in the United States, U.S. be as in bartendergfoundation.org and then you can navigate to the Bartender Emergency Assistant Program from there. We're also getting more information on the United Way COVID-19 funds that's been started. I know the National Convention and Visitors Corporation contributed the first $500,000 to that just a couple of days ago. You can just call 2-1-1 for information and we'll see how that develops because I'm not sure they've started deploying funds yet, but are taking donations and then we'll start deploying the funds. So those are some of the outside organizations that may be able to help out on top of unemployment. There are a few other things that have been shared. One is that Metro Water in Nashville has suspended cutoffs and will waive late fees for the month of March and then we'll be taking that case by case if we extend past March, which may be likely. They have found themselves, customers who have found themselves experiencing hardship may request a payment plan as well for outstanding balances. So when this is all said

07:20and done, you can request a payment plan through Metro Water. Go to their website or you can call 615-862-4600. NES is doing the same. They're suspending all disconnects, including disconnects from nonpayment into April, and they'll continue to monitor the situation to determine the exact timeframe. So the recommendation there is if you don't have the finances to pay for it, just pause your payments right now. Piedmont, which is our gas company in Davidson, is significantly decreasing natural gas rates for all customers in its Tennessee service territory and the decrease is effective immediately and will reflect on customers March 2020 bills and potentially into April as well. Here's another one that has been shared. Another Round, Another Rally is the name of the nonprofit. It says here they are a nonprofit financial resource for the hospitality industry, including scholarships, developing future leaders, and supplying emergency assistance.

08:27So for that, the website, you can Google Another Round, Another Rally, R-A-L-L-Y. The website shared is Insta, as in like Instagram, instabiobio.cc slash Another Round AR. It might be easier just to Google that one. So those are some of the things going on right now. There was also something posted, Department of Human Services Emergency Benefits. This just states the Tennessee Department of Human Services will be issuing emergency pandemic, what they call T-A-N-F, which is an emergency cash assistance program for those impacted by COVID-19. So temporary assistance for needy families funds is what that stands for. To qualify, you have to have children in the household, one, be at or below the 85th percentile of the state median income, approximately below $52,000 a year total family income for a family of three, and be able to show they are impacted by COVID-19, such as job loss due to employee closure. If you need proof of that, if you're an employee, you need proof of that. What you need from your employer is called a State of Tennessee Separation Notice. You don't necessarily need this to apply for unemployment, but you may need it to apply for grants to prove that you've been laid off, even if it's temporary.

09:55So you can request that from your employer, and they should supply that for you. It's a form. If you are an employer that is unfamiliar with that form, it's one of those required documents that a surprising amount of people don't know about, but it's not well publicized. You can just Google State of Tennessee Separation Notice, and there's an official document, but basically it's a Department of Labor document that you fill out your business information, the employee's information, why they were terminated or laid off or what have you, and then you have to include your employer unemployment account number, which they issue when you start a new business. So some of the things there hopefully that are helpful. I think what else we've got going on here that's on the stuff, and people are adding to it as we go along. If I can segue over to business owners, of course, there's some information coming out, I think rather slowly about SBA assistance, and you can go to the SBA's website. It's starting to put together assistance loans for small businesses impacted by the coronavirus, and there's some information here, but it's still being developed.

11:25That's what I've got so far for employees, employers at this time. The other thing I wanted to mention is that for employees that are applying for unemployment, whether it's temporary or if they've been permanently laid off, you go to jobs for the number 4tn.gov to do that, and if you are an employee that reads better in a different language, you can translate the page if you scroll down to the bottom, and you can translate that, select your language, and then that translates the entire website, including the application, but you have to do that homepage first. So if you're assisting somebody with that process and they are, English is not their first language, that's a really key, but kind of hidden feature on the jobs4tn.gov website where you file for unemployment. Wow. Well, that is a lot of really good information.

12:32It's not enough, but we're trying to get it out there. As it comes available, we're continuing to get it out as fast as possible. I'm going to create a thread at Nashville Restaurant Radio on my Facebook page. If you have information that you like to add to this, if you know of anything, please feel free to comment and let everybody else out there know. Something that I think we've been seeing all over just kind of hit yesterday that's a big deal. I met with Margot on Tuesday, Margot McCormick on Tuesday, and she mentioned that a bunch of restaurant owners and chefs had gotten together and created Tennessee Action for Hospitality. What do you know about that? Yeah, so it's starting to get passed around. I think I've gotten it sent to me by several people in the business via Instagram and text, but basically it's a coalition of chefs and restaurant leaders, and it's a simple webpage. You go to tnactionforhospitality.com, and it's just a form making it easy for us to email and send basically a plea to our representatives. It goes to a long list. Governor Bill Lee, Senator Lamar Alexander, Senator Marshall Blackburn, David Rowe, Tim Burchett, Charles Fleishman, Scott Dagerle, Jim Cooper, John Rose, Mark Green, David Gustaf, and Steve Cohen over in West Tennessee. So that hits most of anybody that's going to hear this, your representatives. So the more they hear from us, the more powerful we are. Basically what it's stating is, hey, restaurants are always the first to give. The silent auctions, we get asked for gift cards all the time. We say yes. When disaster strikes, we show up with food. We're constantly donating to charities, and our employee base is

14:36as an industry, the hospitality industry is one of the biggest employers in Tennessee. So our people need assistance, and the businesses are going to need a lot of help getting back up and running. So we're putting in that plea, and there's a pre-filled letter. So it's super, super easy. You just kind of put your name, your address, put in your business address if you prefer that email, and then there's a little form where you can write a personal statement about your story or how it's impacting you directly. So I personally think that this is really important, not just for owners and leaders, but the share of your staffs as well, and more people to hear from. The better, for sure. Specific things, if you're going, okay, sure, that's great. Some specific things that we're asking for is obviously some additional funds beyond unemployment to go to employees. We're also asking them to relax on the business ownership side, franchise and excise taxes, penalties for sales tax payments, and just basically relaxing penalties for bill payments, mortgages, rents, those types of things as much as possible, and then basically injecting some funds to get us back up and running, relaxing some of the barriers to getting the Small Business Association loans, and pushing insurance to cover this. So right now they're not considering this pandemic a cause for loss of business, which is mind-blowing as most of the city is shut down, and certainly most of the bars or restaurants and anything hospitality related have been severely impacted. I spoke with my insurance yesterday on this, and our provider is pushing the carrier,

16:41but you know, it's one of those catch-22s, the very safely thing, until the government tells us that you're mandated to shut down, we're not going to cover it, which is one, wrong, and two, it just puts us in a really tough position. So that's something we're also pushing the government to lean on insurance companies to do. If you're listening to this, go to Tennessee Action for Hospitality, and there's a button on that page that says Take Action. Click that button, put your information in there, it's going to ask you for your address, your email, your phone number, put that in, and let them know that we need help. We do need help. I met again to reference my conversation with Margot. She talked about that we give so much love, that one of the things that we are in this industry is we're artists, and we're people who are, who really, who need, we need to give love because we have a spirit of service. Our love language, as in general, is spirit of service, is acts of service. We always do that. We always come to the table. We are all the people, when something happens, we're the first ones to jump right in because that's what we need. And if you're listening to this and you don't work in the restaurant business, it's through those things that makes us special. So order takeout food, order your food through restaurants, help restaurants in whatever way you possibly can. We're all doing the right thing out there in order to help feed everybody, and this is a huge community of people who all they do is share love with everybody out there on a daily basis. It's a pretty amazing community to be a part of. Claire, do you have anything else you want to say to the general restaurant public out there? Anybody that you want to, any words of encouragement, anything you got? Yes, I think I'd just say, you know, keep everybody, keep their chins up, stay in tune to what's going on. And it's going to be a tough time, but we're in Nashville, we're in Tennessee, we're going to get through this. It's completely unprecedented, it's crazy, but stay connected with

18:41people via phone, email, don't put yourself into a hole. Find ways to just keep your spirits up and we'll get back to work as soon as possible. We're all very excited. And if anybody out there that's not employed by restaurants is happening to listen to this, find ways to support your local businesses, buy some gift cards. And also, we would love for you to support us in the T in action for hospitality.com efforts as well. But find ways to be supportive. That's been the hardest part is that how do I do anything when I can't leave the house? And so get online and find ways to do that. A lot of our local restaurants are doing funds for their employees in a variety of different ways, so pay attention to that on social media as well to support the businesses around us. Thank you so much, Claire. And thank you for taking the time today to share with me as well as the restaurant community what they can do. I will keep me posted. Anything else that you want to add? Please, we'd love to have you back on here and give an update as soon as we have things that are available. But thank you so much and God bless you and hopefully we're all going to be okay.

19:59Yeah, thank you so much, Brandon. This is really important, so thank you for doing this. It's my pleasure. Thank you. Thanks. So thanks again to Claire Crowell for joining us here on Nashville Restaurant Radio. If you have anything you'd like to add to this, again, go to the Facebook page, Nashville Restaurant Radio. Join in the thread. Let us know what you think. Let us know if any of these things have worked for you. Any opportunities you have. Let's just start a thread where people can go and they can use it as a resource. Thanks again for listening and I hope you're all safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.