Only 1 Melrose Restaurant Got SBA Grant In COVID Relief Package

MELROSE, MA — One restaurant in Melrose was among the more than 2,500 in Massachusetts that received nearly $1 billion from the Small Business Administration's Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which was passed by Congress last year as part of a sweeping coronavirus relief package.

Bobby C's on Main Street was the only local restaurant to get the grant, which was worth $127,421.82.

The $993 million given to Massachusetts restaurants was sixth highest of any state in the country. And the average award of $338,000 to businesses in Massachusetts was the highest in the country. But the 2,556 Massachusetts businesses that received funding under the program were just 37.2 percent of the 6,867 that applied to the program, which SBA is shutting down Wednesday.

But hundreds of Massachusetts restaurants are facing an uncertain future after the U.S. Small Business Administration said last month it was shutting down the Restaurant Revitalization Fund passed by Congress as part of the coronavirus relief package.

"For these restaurant owners, it feels like insult on top of injury," Irene Li, the owner of Mei Mei Boston and the program manager of CommonWealth Kitchen’s Restaurant Resiliency Fund, told the Boston Globe, which first reported this story. "It’s like, 'This was supposed to be for us.'"

In an email to applicants last month, SBA said the program will be "disabled" July 14. At that time, it will stop accepting applications. Nationally, the program has handed out grants to 105,000 restaurants, but another 265,000 applicants are still waiting. A bill to replenish the fund has been introduced in Congress, but it has not moved forward.

"There are thousands of operators in Massachusetts that dutifully applied for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund on the first day that it was opened. Without Congressional action to replenish the fund, restaurants across Massachusetts will face an uncertain future," said Steve Clark of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. "Many are in the ironic position of seeing increased diners but are taking in less revenue as they battle with continuously rising food prices and lack of labor and staffing issues to fully reopen."

Despite restaurant industry lobbying for Congress to replenish the fund, lawmakers have been more focused on reaching a compromise on the Biden administration's infrastructure improvement bill.

"It is a particular gut-punch for those operators that received a funding notice a few weeks ago, only to get a funding rejection letter last week," Clark said. "We need Congress to act on the RRF Replenishment Act to provide the SBA with the funds they need to complete this important mission.”