Buffalo West had been a bustling steakhouse for eight years until the coronavirus hit. By July 2020, the popular eatery was one of the first to permanently shut its doors in Fort Worth along with Taverna, Bird Cafe, Deep Ellum Brewing, Cork & Pig Tavern on Crockett Row, and Cantina Laredo downtown, according to media reports.
“We’ve since liquidated the assets, but the building is obviously still there,” said Buffalo West Owner Chris Piekarski. “My goal certainly is to try and get something back open again. I search every day and talk with people every day.”
Although the Buffalo West restaurant did not survive the pandemic and resulting economic shutdowns, Piekarski has revived it partially as a private catering business at an off-site location until he finds a new storefront.
“I work with Texas Christian University and with some of the veterans at the Joint Reserve Base,” Piekarski told Dallas Express. “I try to keep that going and try to accommodate them any way that I can. I kept the Buffalo West phone number, and our customer base is still there. I get phone calls every day.”
Among the obstacles, Piekarski faces in reopening Buffalo West is finding affordable retail space in the DFW area.
“Things are in all-time disarray between trying to find employees, trying to find product, and most of all real estate,” he said. “What I’ve found with the real estate is that most of the realtors were able to take PPP money and use it to their benefit, and they’re not bending on places or anything, so it’s really tough right now.”
Piekarski is not alone. The Texas Restaurant Association (TRA) represents 1.3 million workers and 50,000 owners that make up the state’s $70 billion restaurant industry who have been especially impacted by the pandemic.
“These local businesses have really been through the wringer over the past 18 months,” said Kelsey Erickson Streufert, TRA vice president of government relations and advocacy. “They are really still in very difficult economic situations because of the ripple effects created by closure orders, job losses, and now inflation and price spikes.”
In response, the Texas Restaurant Coalition led a coalition of 10 different groups within hospitality and tourism to include $180 million in Senate Bill (SB) 8, the federal pandemic relief bill approved this week by the legislature.
“It was something that we worked with the coalition to get added into the bill because we felt it was really important that local businesses have a seat at the table and get a small portion of that 13 plus billion dollars,” Streufert told Dallas Express.
Groups in the coalition that lobbied lawmakers included Texas Travel Alliance, Texas Distilled Spirits Association, Theatre Owners of Mid-America, Texas Hotel & Lodging Association, Texas Wine & Grape Growers Association, Texas Campgrounds, Texas Craft Brewers Guild, NFIB, and Texas Live Events Coalition.
“It’s cause for celebration,” Streufert said in an interview. “We spoke out, and hundreds of Texans supported the campaign by emailing their lawmakers. As a result, we were able to get it added into the bill, and that bill finally passed. The grant program didn’t exist in the bill, and that $180 million wasn’t set aside for it. We had to get that added in and protected through the legislative process.”
SB 8 is currently pending approval with Governor Greg Abbott.
“We are hopeful and expectant that he will sign the bill into law because he’s been such a great champion for not just our industry, [but also] the state’s overall economic recovery from this really difficult time,” Streufert said.
If signed by Gov. Abbott, the $180 million will be transferred to the Economic Development and Tourism Office, which is within the governor’s office.
“They will adopt rules and spell out the specifics of how the money is to be allocated, but the bill is clear that it should be distributed as grants to help local businesses recover,” Streufert said. “The federal government did a program called the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Our recommendation would be that we borrow what worked from that because it’s something that we’ve already executed and learned from. The good thing about that program is that the funding formula was simple.”
The Restaurant Revitalization Fund compared 2019 revenues to 2020 revenues and offset the difference with money already received, such as PPP funds.
“It didn’t require businesses to spend a lot of extra time and resources proving up an application or doing complex accounting,” Streufert said.
Under SB 8 guidelines, each grant will be limited to $20,000 and includes small businesses in the disbursement.
“The number one goal of the Texas Restaurant Association, once this program gets set up and we know what the rules are, is to promote it, to make sure that restaurants large, small, rural, urban and suburban know about the opportunity and have every fair, equitable chance to apply,” Streufert added. “We’ll do education webinars and anything else we need to do to make sure that the word gets out, and that businesses hit hard know to apply for this money.”
The $180 million is made available through the American Rescue Plan Act, which directs the money to aid the tourism, travel, and hospitality industries. Restaurants, hotels and live event businesses are included in that category.
“This grant program cannot reverse all of the damage that the industry has suffered during the pandemic, but it will be incredibly meaningful to thousands of restaurants, theaters, distilleries, and other businesses that need a jumpstart to turn the corner and rebuild,” said Emily Williams Knight, Ed.D., TRA President, and CEO.
Piekarski, who is looking forward to submitting an application, says he could use the money.
“I will certainly take a look at it,” he said. “It’s still a tough time. I thought I was close on one thing way back in February, but I couldn’t get the numbers to work right with the real estate. So, each day there’s another challenge. That’s for sure.”
