The Paycheck Protection Program made headlines again last week after it emerged that a number of Republican lawmakers who criticized President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness order took out PPP loans and forgave them.
The federal Pandemic Relief Program has provided forgiving loans to small businesses to help business owners keep their employees on the job while the pandemic ravages the economy. It’s been more than two years since the program launched, and many small business owners say their business has changed a lot since then.
It took Sherard Duvall a while to get a PPP loan for his South Carolina-based video production company, OTR Media Group. The company said he finally received his check in July 2020, four months after he submitted his first application.
At the time, Duvall said he used the money to pay workers and settle bills.
“This freed up our ability to say, ‘OK, we’ve got some of the debt off, let’s look at rebalancing sales and advertising, let’s look at creating a website,'” Duvall said in 2020. said in the year.
By the time he got the loan, Duvall’s video production jobs had dried up. So the company has launched a new business of installing live streaming equipment in home his offices, businesses and churches.
Duvall says business has been going well since then.
“We were doing installations and training almost every week, or we were sending crews to the office or hiring crews to go somewhere,” says Duvall.
Meanwhile, Duvall was expanding his company as video production jobs returned. May — Nearly two years after obtaining a PPP loan — Duvall took out a small business loan to purchase video equipment to help the company meet demand.
“If it hadn’t been for the success we’ve had since the pandemic, we wouldn’t have gotten that loan in May,” Duvall said.
Duvall wants to hire more staff and create office space. Now he is preparing to take out yet another loan.
“You may need to purchase a location, or you may need to pay enough for the leased space upfront so that you can arrange the physical space inside,” says Duvall. .
The pandemic has forced many businesses to evolve.
Before the pandemic, Naomi Pomeroy ran a restaurant called Beast in Portland, Oregon. Diners had a set menu for about $175 per person. The James Beard Award-winning chef said everything wasn’t very COVID-friendly.
“People were literally sitting almost shoulder-to-shoulder and eating the same thing at the same time for two and a half hours with people they had never met before,” Pomeroy said. “It was a lot of fun, but I couldn’t see how to proceed with it for quite some time.”
Pomeroy closed the restaurant and took a PPP loan to turn it into a new business. Ripe Cooperative sells home-cooked meal boxes with pasta, sauces and salads.
And the restaurant is back from spring last year. “As soon as people started getting vaccinated, I honestly had a lot of FOMO with friends who had these big outdoor patio spaces,” Pomeroy said.
Last November, Pomeroy turned Ripe Cooperative into a cafe. She used some of her PPP money left over to expand her own outdoor patio.
Pomeroy said she likes that the café is far less exclusive than her previous restaurant.
“Now the model is very different because it’s a cafe and the check average is lower,” Pomeroy said. Earnings are down.”
Rising costs throughout the supply chain make it especially difficult for restaurants to turn a profit.
Mark Friar, who owns two restaurants in Vermont, said: “And we have to turn around and try to be profitable. It’s tough now.”
Fryer previously owned a third restaurant along with a music venue. He said his PPP loans kept all three of his businesses alive in the early days of the pandemic. But late last year, he closed his restaurants and music venues amid rising costs and the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“That music venue has been there for 50 years,” Fryer said. “And I felt terrible for being the one to close it. I was paying for it.”
Fryer said the outlook for the rest of the restaurant is pretty grim. He said he couldn’t keep raising prices to cover the costs. Meanwhile, it is difficult to find a worker and he has to close the restaurant one day a week.
“I would like to go back to a seven-day work week,” says Fryer. “It looks like staffing isn’t going well, so we’ve been closed for a day.”
That means you have to cover all your weekly expenses in just 6 days instead of 7.
A lot is happening in the world. All in all, Marketplace is for you.
Use the Marketplace to analyze world events and tell them how they affect you in a factual and friendly way. To keep it possible, we rely on your financial support.
Your donation today will power the independent journalism you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help us maintain the Marketplace. This allows us to keep you informed of what is important to you.
