Conventional wisdom holds that independent restaurants have suffered far more than their chain-affiliated brethren during the pandemic. But new evidence suggests they may have just kvetched louder.
Research shows that one-of-a-kinds bested outlets of big national restaurant brands in two key measures of wellbeing during the age of COVID: rescue aid and restaffing.
After cannonballing into a trove of data from the Small Business Administration, the real estate broker We Sell Restaurants discovered that independent restaurants were nearly 10 times more likely than franchisees of a chain to land a grant from the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF). Exactly 90,492 non-affiliated mom-and-pops split more than 90% of the money, or $25.6 billion, which works out to an average of about $283,000 each.
In contrast, 10,158 units of franchise chains divvied up $2.65 billion, for roughly $261,000 each.
Indeed, franchised restaurants collected less in grants than caterers ($3.2 billion) and places specializing in booze rather than food (wineries, distillers, brewpubs, breweries and bars, $4.5 billion.)
The program was set up to help small operators, so indies of all stripes theoretically had an advantage. But we’re not talking mega-franchisees on the chain side; the RRF program was only open to operators of 20 or fewer stores. Given the closeness of the average grants for chains and independents, the operators falling within those groups were likely close in revenues, the determinant of how much an applicant could get. Small businesses are small businesses, whether they bear the signage of McDonald’s or invite consumers to eat at Joe’s.
Labor disadvantage
Meanwhile, restaurants flying the banner of a chain might as well be hoisting a red warning flag up the flagpole. About one in five job hunters have a negative or very negative impression of chain restaurants as places to work, according to new data from Technomic, the research sister of Restaurant Business.
Two-thirds of the labor pool holds a positive image of independent restaurants as a place to work, Technomic found. In contrast, only 55% of the workforce looks favorably on chain restaurants as potential employers.
At least the most disconcerting takeaway from Technomic’s new data should equally upset the two groups: Technomic concluded from its research that the labor crisis is not a temporary problem.