New Jersey’s restaurants, like those in many other places, have certainly struggled during the pandemic.
But DoorDash is racing to the rescue, donating half a million dollars to the New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association to help restaurants through the pandemic. Restaurants can apply for grants of $2500 or $5000. Marilou Halvorsen is the association’s president.
“Being honest it’s not huge money,” she said, “but what it could mean to some of our smaller, independent, especially our ethnically diverse restaurants, you know those are so important to the state’s culinary environment.”
Halvorsen estimated that New Jersey has lost 37% of its restaurants during the pandemic. She said the winter is proving to be especially tough.
“Restaurants that are not normally seasonal are operating seasonally,” she said. “I think a lot of them are closing down in January-February because they’re slow anyway then and it’s hard to sustain at 25%.”
And that 37% figure, said Halvorsen, could easily rise. “That number could be certainly higher when some of these restaurants that are on this hiatus just decide not to reopen,” she said, “and how long we stay shut down. Hopefully we should be coming out the other side by now.”
The grant application will be available on the association’s website, www.njrha.org, by Feb. 1. The grants will be awarded to independent restaurants with five or fewer locations which can show a loss of at least 30% from 2019.