About half of the local restaurant and bar owners participating in a Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce survey said they will be able to survive another month to five months if the state ban on indoor dining continues.
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The survey was sent to members after the new restrictions were put in place two weeks ago slow the surge in COVID-19 cases being reported. All of Naperville is affected because the ban is in effect both Will and DuPage counties, as well as Kane, Kankakee and suburban Cook counties and all of Chicago.
Reba Osborne, the chamber’s director of government affairs, said the survey response was smaller than normal because members were asked to complete it within 24 hours. That said, most of what people had to say was the same, she said.
“This survey underscores that our restaurants and bars are near their breaking point,” Osborne said in a news release. “Most of them are small business owners who do not have large amounts of capital to keep them floating through rough times.”
Broken down, 20% said they might be able to survive another month or less and 30% said their reserves would keep them afloat for anywhere from one to five months.
About 89% said they did not have a sustainable outdoor dining plan for the winter and two-thirds said restricting indoor capacity to 25% was not viable for their business. The Phase 4 guidelines they had been operating under allows for 50% indoor dining capacity.
About 50% said they expect their losses to exceed 75% and another 40% said their losses would to be anywhere from 25% to 75%.
“This is heartbreaking for our businesses. This is heartbreaking for so many families who have lost someone to this disease,” chamber President/CEO Kaylin Risvold said in the release. “This is a lose-lose pandemic.”
If the rules are followed, dining in a restaurant can be safer than going to a group gathering, she said.
“Indoor dining, with all of its precautions, can encourage mask wearing and distance in a way that gathering at someone’s home cannot,” Risvold said. “We want to work together to save both lives and livelihoods.”