MICHIGAN, USA — The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association put out a call to action Dec. 17, asking Michiganders to consider restaurant gift cards during this holiday season.
The Association stated that through gift cards, restaurants get immediate funds to use on anything they need, while carry out options are allocated funds.
"If someone purchases a carry out, we definitely can cover our food and our labor costs but most restaurants aren't making enough to pay the rest of the bills. So, you know, really most restaurants, even though they're doing carry out they are still losing money and when we actually get a gift card sale, especially the businesses that do manage their own gift cards, then that gives them cash that will help them for other things they might need," said MRLA board member Billy Downs.
Downs owns and operates Ford’s Garage in Dearborn.
Downs says right now there are three very specific ways customers can help restaurants as the ones still open wait on eventual federal aid.
"There's kind of three things that consumers can do right now to really help out restaurants. One, obviously, is ordering carry out from their restaurants in their neighborhood. The frequency they do that — if they order carry out once a month, if they do that twice a month or if they do once a week, twice a week. The second thing you can do is buy a gift card, and gift cards do provide cash to the business in a time when we need it, especially if something happens federally where we get some additional dollars here in January, this little gift card purchase now we'll give people, business owners cash to make it to that January time, helping keep the local businesses in business," Downs said. "And then I think the third thing is you know you probably know someone in the hospitality industry and however you can bless them any way shape or form, like if you have a neighbor who happens to be a server who's unemployed, what better way to take care of them than buying them a meal from another restaurant or the one they work at. So there's ways that everybody can participate in this."
In the city of Lowell, Canfield Plumbing and heating has answered the call to action as a business by starting a match program.
They are matching up to $25,000 in gift card purchases to people that buy them from local Lowell restaurants.
"The first time around we did it I think in March, and it amounted to about $25,000 in managed gift cards, and the cards that other people had purchased was around another 26,000 so it added about 50,000 to the local economy in our little town here," said the business owner, Greg Canfield. "It's Christmas time, it's a great time to buy gift cards as presents so it'll probably go quick this time and we did put a cap on it up to $25,000 or New Year's Eve midnight, whichever comes first.
Restaurants are still asking that people continue to purchase carry out, but both Canfield and Downs said the restaurants are really worried about the building cost and keeping the lights on.
In the same call to action, The MRLA advocated for staycations this holiday season, to help restaurants that partner and reside in many Michigan hotels, another industry that has been hit hard by the pandemic.
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