Sam Gurwitt Photos
With the printed red flames from a fiery chicken wing visible on the glass storefront behind him, as if protruding from his head, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal delivered a message for the state’s small businesses: there are still federal dollars waiting to help them.
Blumenthal gave that press briefing in front of Bomb Wings and Rice on Whitney Avenue in Hamden Friday morning.
There is still $130 billion left in the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), he said. PPP loans are designed to help businesses weather the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, and were a major component of the $2.2 trillion stimulus the federal government passed in March.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House extended the deadline to apply to Aug. 8, after the Senate had voted to do so a few days earlier.
In particular, black-owned businesses should seek the assistance, Blumenthal said.
“This paycheck protection program ought to be focusing on black-owned businesses that have faced really tough times,” he said as cars rushed by, nearly drowning him out.
Blumenthal chose a business Friday that exemplified what he said he hopes other businesses will do. Bomb Wings and Rice is one of Hamden’s newer black-owned restaurants, and has used a PPP loan to get through the pandemic.
Jason Teal (pictured above), the owner, and the second vice president of the state NAACP, stood next to Blumenthal as the senator plugged the now extended program.
“Jason Teal and his business is a real American success story,” Blumenthal began. “Nothing could be more American than free enterprise that does good by helping people. This kind of small business is really what makes America great.”
Bomb Wings and Rice opened last year, but Teal was in the business of feeding people before. In 2013, he started a nonprofit organization in Meriden called Change the Play, which provides career, educational, and other programming for at-risk youth. In 2017, Teal said, he started to see that many of the kids he served were hungry. So he started a meal program to feed the students who came to the organization’s programming after school.
When he figured out he would need a kitchen to prepare the meals for Change the Play, Teal said, he decided it would make sense to create a restaurant out of the kitchen. He said he and his partner were considering just doing wings, but thought wings alone wouldn’t carry the business. They were thinking about the most successful types of restaurants in America, and thought Chinese restaurants probably take the cake. The American-Chinese favorite? Fried rice. Thus, Bomb Wings and Rice was born.
Now, cooks use the kitchen at the restaurant before and after business hours to make food for kids in Hamden, Meriden, and Wallingford through Change the Play. Teal said the non-profit started its summer meals program on Monday, and has served about 1,000 kids breakfast and lunch every day so far. In Hamden, Change the Play distributes food at St. Ann’s Soup Kitchen at St. Ann’s Church on Dixwell Avenue.
Teal said the restaurant lost about 50 percent of its business at the beginning of the pandemic. He applied for a PPP loan and got $22,500, which helped him keep his 13 employees on payroll.
Luckily, Bomb Wings and Rice is set up well for a pandemic. Teal said he and his business partner designed the restaurant around third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub, and Doordash.
“They’re really robbing the industry, how much they take,” he said of those apps, which often draw as much as 30 percent of the proceeds from a restaurant’s sale. He and his partner factored that into the financial design of the restaurant, which has virtually no seating and just a front counter, because he figured those apps would be the future even if they do harm restaurants.
Business has picked up again, he said, thanks to the PPP and increased exposure. “Honestly, we have really good food,” he said, explaining the restaurant’s recent success. But with so much uncertainty ahead due to the pandemic, another PPP loan would definitely help, he said.
PPP loans are forgiven if businesses use 60 percent of them on paychecks, down from 70 percent in the original program. But while there may be $130 billion left, it’s not always so easy for businesses to get them.
In the first round of PPP loans, small businesses often did not fare well. Loans often went to large corporations. Loans of over $2 million accounted for a quarter of the money spent in the first round, NPR reported in May. Small businesses were often left behind.
While the federal government provides the funding for the program, it is up to local lenders to actually offer the loans to businesses. Lenders might be hesitant to offer loans to small businesses that have never taken a loan from a bank. In this next round of loans, said Blumenthal, the government needs to ensure that small borrowers have access to the program.
In many cases, small business owners don’t have the tools, the bandwidth, or the know-how to apply for a PPP loan.
Scott Dolch (pictured), executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association, said that many restaurant owners he has spoken to are hesitant to apply. They have never had to take out a loan, he said, and he has to reassure them that PPPs are fully forgivable.
“I’ve been screaming from the rooftops: ‘What do you mean you haven’t gotten a PPP?’” he said. In a period of such uncertainty, when restaurants may not be able to operate normally for a long time yet, restaurants need to think long-term, he said, and get all the help they can.
State Sen. George Logan, echoing Blumenthal,urged his constituents to take advantage of the program. He told them to reach out to local lawmakers like him if they need help. Business owners can also contact Blumenthal’s office or their other federal representatives, or the Connecticut Restaurant Association for help.
At that point, it was approaching noon, when the restaurant would open, and the smell of wings and rice was beckoning. The two senators followed the smell into the kitchen, where they stood and talked to Teal for a few minutes.
By the time they left, there were brown paper bags waiting for them. Lunch Friday for the two senators was a Peruvian rice bowl and wings.