Image via California Restaurant Foundation

The California Restaurant Foundation is providing restaurants in the Central Valley with financial relief to navigate the rough waters of the pandemic. 

The nonprofit will funnel grants up to $3,500 from its new Resilience Fund to single-unit, hard-hit restaurants. It will prioritize businesses owned by women and people of color. Recipients of the grant will also gain access to support services and resources to help long term business operations. 

The funds must be used for payroll. The foundation’s goal is to provide a safety net so that business owners can more comfortably pay for rent, bills and technology upgrades.

The program is funded by California energy companies SoCal Gas, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric, which collectively gave $1.25 million for the foundation’s Resilience Fund. 

Applications are open April 11-18 at restaurantscare.org/resilience. Eligibility is for restaurants in Alameda, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Joaquin counties with a staff of 50 or fewer employees. Restaurants must currently be open and have had a 20% revenue reduction between 2019 and 2020. 

The Resilience Fund is also accepting donations from corporations, foundations and individuals who wish to further the funding efforts for restaurant recovery. Donations are accepted at www.restaurantscare.org/resilience.

“We recognize the hardships that many of our customers are facing from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many local restaurants are struggling to stay open. These are important businesses that bring people together and power local economies. PG&E has long partnered with our small and medium restaurant business customers to help them improve energy efficiency, lower operating costs and improve the performance of their building and cooking systems. We’re supporting the Restaurants Care Resilience Fund to help ensure local restaurants can keep serving their customers and investing in our communities,” said PG&E Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Marlene Santos.