Otter Commercial Services

Yesterday the Senate voted to approve President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. Included in the package is a budget amendment for the $25 billion Restaurant Rescue Plan. It was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority by a vote of 90 to 10. The complete relief package will now head back to the House for final approval.

The Restaurant Rescue Plan is based upon the RESTAURANTS Act originally introduced by Rep Earl Blumenauer in June. While smaller than the $120 billion relief fund proposed last spring, Rep. Blumenauer called this new plan “a huge step toward protecting our cherished local restaurants and providing a desperately needed lifeline to keep them in business."

Following on the heels of the vote, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR 3) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA 1) introduced the RESTAURANTS Act of 2021 to Congress. Modeled after the legislation introduced last year, the proposal includes several new provisions including grant eligibility for restaurants that opened after January 1, 2020.

These actions come after the Dept. of Labor issued its January jobs report showing that while the overall economy has shown growth, 19,000 more restaurant and bar workers lost their jobs in the first month of 2021. Per a statement issued on the Independent Restaurant Coalition’s website:

“An economic analysis of the proposal found that $120 billion in grants to independent restaurants and bars could create $271 billion in economic benefits to the U.S. economy as the country looks to recover from the pandemic. The report also concludes such a fund would reduce nationwide unemployment by an estimated 2.4%.”