The Effect LA Shutdowns Have Had on the Restaurant Industry

We're here to talk about what the fuck is happening to the restaurant industry during this pandemic and how crazy it is. You know, I've talked about this before, but having you guys on so you could say first hand what it's been like to you and what this experience has been like and how poorly it's been handled. Just, I want to give people a sense of this at home, what it's like from two men who have made their living in the hospitality and restaurant industry. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you want to start Craig? Well, no, the funny thing is it's like we're the rule followers. We're the ones that are used to handling the health department. We're the ones that are used to, you know, doing everything that, you know, from a safety standpoint, right? And now we're the ones that are being crushed or being picked on, so to speak, by, but that's the way a lot of people in the industry feel because we're the ones that are being shut down in a city where a lot of other businesses are remaining open like malls, distribution centers, markets, stores. I mean, you can go to a mall and go shopping. You can go on an airplane from LA to, you know, New York, take your mask off and eat. And that's okay, but you can't eat outdoors in a restaurant in LA that's following social distancing, all the health guidelines. I mean, we know our business. And so it's been really hard since what it started March 15th. We shut down. We were then told to put glass in between our boots. So we did that. We opened for about 10 days. We did UV lights in the air conditioning systems. Air filtration, all the stoop, everything. Absolutely. And then we built patios. I've personally spent $250,000 abiding by the rules that were set forth by the state, by the county, by the governors, by everybody. And then to just kind of be shut down is really, really difficult. And it's not about me and it's not about my restaurant and it's not about John. It's not about, it's about the employees. It's about the dishwashers and the busboys and the servers that live day to day on the money that they make at the restaurant. It's their livelihood. It's how they feed their families. They send money back to the countries that they came from. This is a larger issue. And the reason it's a larger issue is one little restaurant like Craig's, we have 90 employees. A furniture store might have five or six. So when you shut down an industry like that, it really has a huge economic impact. And then it has a social impact because we all love to eat. It's the one thing we have in common. We like to get together as people. I'm a giant fan of restaurants. I mean, some of my favorite things to do is to go out to eat. And living in LA, it was so frustrating. It was bizarre. It doesn't make sense. Now, when you guys get the orders, when they tell you what's shut down or what's open, is there anyone you communicate with? Is there anyone that's involved in government that you've had conversations with? No, that's the issue. That's the biggest issue that we have is they refuse to communicate to any of us. And I can't quite figure out why. We hear about it on the news. We've joined with about 30, 40 other main owners that are all in the area. And I think it's the one thing that's kind of a silver lining in all this is that we've all teamed up to kind of try to figure out what's going on. But we find out about it from the news. And we have to just make these moves within 24 hours. It's absolutely absurd. And we've reached out. I've reached out to Newsom. I've reached out to Garcetti. And they do nothing. They put you on phony task force. They lie. They have no idea how serious this is. And I commend you for having us on. No one else wants to speak about it. Everyone's too scared to backlash. What backlash? I don't think they understand that LA is crumbling. Yeah, I think people are thinking it's black and white. If you say anything somewhat negative, they view you as you're anti-COVID. You're wanting to kill everybody. That's not the case. You're a science denier. Right. Yeah, that's not the case. But that's not the issue. So we're not denying that there's an issue. We're not denying that people are getting sick. We're not denying that there are, we all are in this together. So how do you do it well? How do you do it smartly? Where should we be spending money? A perfect example is they're doing rapid testing in certain areas. So instead of losing all of this revenue, why don't they invest in smart technology that has rapid testing that allows people to go to a restaurant, get a rapid test, you're positive, you're negative, and then you get to go into the restaurant. Like we did here today. Exactly. We got rapid testing today. Everyone's a fine. We can sit down and have a conversation, have no paranoia. You could do that at a restaurant. You could have the, I was telling you about Stubbs Barbecue here in Austin where Dave Chappelle and I have been doing shows. We do 400 seats. We test everyone. People get their way in advance. They test them. They get a COVID test, which gives them a nice piece of mind like, oh great, I don't have it. Then you get to sit down and enjoy a show. And the place is packed. And so the business is making money. Everyone's having a good time. It's possible. Well, that's what a lot of people are doing in LA, right? So they're having parties in LA and a lot of them are doing rapid testing beforehand. So everybody gets a wristband and everybody in the party knows that everybody's negative. But isn't the mayor threatening to shut those kind of parties down? He's trying to shut water off. Like, and by the way, he's done it. Yeah. Water in power, which we're living in like a dictatorship. I literally feel like LA is like a third world country right now. Never seen anything like this. Well, if you go to Venice or you go to downtown LA and you see the encampments, it's fucking bananas. Yeah. I mean, third world countries wouldn't allow that shit. It's worse. This is some sort of dictatorship happening that we, to me, is a bigger picture. If, if, if other governments, if other states, counties, cities see that they can just shut an industry down so easily, get a name for themselves, get their name out there, what's stopping everyone else from doing this? Exactly. That's right. That's right. 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