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Putters Covid-19 Staff Relief

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Rolling the Quad

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Not a regular poster on here, but one of my buddies from college started this GoFundMe for Putters, a staple in the Wake community.

Covid-19 is hitting them hard at the moment so wanted to share this to support them and their staff.

‪If you are able, please support and spread the word. For those of you in Winston, they are still open for takeout as well.

Go Deacs!


https://t.co/wkwAUYAwxQ?amp=1
 
Too far of a drive, but I’d love some half crunch, half soft chips.
 
Do they do gift certificates? Jimmy Kimmel made that point on today’s Bill Simmons pod that doing that is a way to help local businesses right now too
 
CDeacMan said:
Do they do gift certificates? Jimmy Kimmel made that point on today’s Bill Simmons pod that doing that is a way to help local businesses right now too
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They do gift certificates at the restaurant and also will ship them to those outside of Winston as well I believe if you will be back in town during football season, homecoming, etc
 
Ok this shit is now serious! The damn Corona better not take down my beloved Putters.
 
CDeacMan said:
Do they do gift certificates? Jimmy Kimmel made that point on today’s Bill Simmons pod that doing that is a way to help local businesses right now too
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Lots of people in the media are saying this...except for the actual business owners. All a gift certificate is going to do is push the loss further down the road. It doesn't replace lost revenue. It just shifts the revenue away from when the expense will be realized. If you're about to shut down completely, a big gift card revenue injection may be a worthy last ditch effort to save your business. But otherwise, there are better ways that customers can help and that businesses can pay their bills. Besides, I'm not buying a bunch of gift cards right now to businesses that may not be around later.

In the restaurant business where margins are tiny, a bunch of folks showing up to cash in their gift certificates when this is all over will just put them in a big financial bind then. Right now their variable costs are way down and they are running as efficiently as possible. For many restaurants, the last thing they need when finally able to open their doors again is a bunch of gift card cash-ins. Expenses will be back through the roof and there won't be much revenue coming in.

If you want to help a business with a gift card, buy it and toss it in the trash. If you really want to help a business, order takeout/delivery and tip heavily when you do.
 
what are the fixed costs for a restaurant once you shut down temporarily? Rent, debt service, what else?

I'm thinking that many landlords are going to have to modify leases - they can't (and probably don't want to) evict good tenants. Ideally you'd modify the lease to get each month of missed rent repaid over 12 months.

Banks don't want to foreclose either, and even barring some congressional prohibition, I suspect they will all work something out as well, like adding months to the end of the term, etc. I know it's not simple and there are a lot of regulatory concerns, but there's going to have to be some common sense way to work through this.
 
DeacDiggler said:
what are the fixed costs for a restaurant once you shut down temporarily? Rent, debt service, what else?
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That's about it. Similar for any retail business.

DeacDiggler said:
I'm thinking that many landlords are going to have to modify leases - they can't (and probably don't want to) evict good tenants. Ideally you'd modify the lease to get each month of missed rent repaid over 12 months.
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Yup. No one is getting booted as a result of this most likely.

DeacDiggler said:
Banks don't want to foreclose either, and even barring some congressional prohibition, I suspect they will all work something out as well, like adding months to the end of the term, etc. I know it's not simple and there are a lot of regulatory concerns, but there's going to have to be some common sense way to work through this.
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Yup. Which is just further reason why loading up on gift cards isn't really helpful. SBA emergency loans, private grants, etc are all being worked out and put in place. I'm sure additional laws will be passed to help. I have a business with very high margins (because our business is very seasonal and weather dependent). I could absorb a bunch of gift card cash-ins better than most businesses, but I'm not out there trying to sell them right now. Instead, I'm modifying my operations and procedures, removing all contact between customer and staff, pairing down to 1-2 staff on duty and working to stay open if at all possible to offer discounts and serve the folks who must be out (LEO, healthcare, first responders, etc).
 
RacerDeac said:
Lots of people in the media are saying this...except for the actual business owners. All a gift certificate is going to do is push the loss further down the road. It doesn't replace lost revenue. It just shifts the revenue away from when the expense will be realized. If you're about to shut down completely, a big gift card revenue injection may be a worthy last ditch effort to save your business. But otherwise, there are better ways that customers can help and that businesses can pay their bills. Besides, I'm not buying a bunch of gift cards right now to businesses that may not be around later.

In the restaurant business where margins are tiny, a bunch of folks showing up to cash in their gift certificates when this is all over will just put them in a big financial bind then. Right now their variable costs are way down and they are running as efficiently as possible. For many restaurants, the last thing they need when finally able to open their doors again is a bunch of gift card cash-ins. Expenses will be back through the roof and there won't be much revenue coming in.

If you want to help a business with a gift card, buy it and toss it in the trash. If you really want to help a business, order takeout/delivery and tip heavily when you do.
Click to expand...

Yeah while gift cards are a solid alternative, we started the GoFund me in my original post to give these guys some quick cash to get through the short term to help out their employees that have had hours cut.

Been really cool to see people’s generosity so far with almost $2,300 bucks raised in less than 24 hours!
 
Rolling the Quad said:
Yeah while gift cards are a solid alternative, we started the GoFund me in my original post to give these guys some quick cash to get through the short term to help out their employees that have had hours cut.

Been really cool to see people’s generosity so far with almost $2,300 bucks raised in less than 24 hours!
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Much better idea than gift cards. There's a cool "virtual tip jar" in Charlotte that allows you to throw in cash that gets distributed to all of the servers and bartenders that have registered.
 
But again, the BEST idea is just to keep ordering takeout and delivery from your favorite places. It's not just the restaurants and their staff that are affected. They have suppliers too, and those suppliers are usually in even more fragile financial situations. I know a number of farms, fishermen, etc that are struggling right now. Continuing to buy food helps all up and down the supply chain.
 
Do we know who Matthew Judy is? Doesn't sound like a Putters employee. Just want to make sure the cash gets to the right place...
 
PaddyWF said:
Do we know who Matthew Judy is? Doesn't sound like a Putters employee. Just want to make sure the cash gets to the right place...
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Matt Judy doesn’t work at Putters but graduated from Wake in 2015. I graduated with him in 2015 and he’s been coordinating with the Putters guys for the last week or so about the best way to help them out.

He originally reached out to a small group of our close friends from college about donating to them directly and then after clearing it with Putters decided to launch a larger effort on Go Fund Me.

Definitely understand the skepticism given how many scams are going around taking advantage of the situation but I can assure you the money will be going directly to Putters and their staff.
 
Rolling the Quad said:
Matt Judy doesn’t work at Putters but graduated from Wake in 2015. I graduated with him in 2015 and he’s been coordinating with the Putters guys for the last week or so about the best way to help them out.

He originally reached out to a small group of our close friends from college about donating to them directly and then after clearing it with Putters decided to launch a larger effort on Go Fund Me.

Definitely understand the skepticism given how many scams are going around taking advantage of the situation but I can assure you the money will be going directly to Putters and their staff.
Click to expand...

Can confirm
 
Rolling the Quad said:
Matt Judy doesn’t work at Putters but graduated from Wake in 2015. I graduated with him in 2015 and he’s been coordinating with the Putters guys for the last week or so about the best way to help them out.

He originally reached out to a small group of our close friends from college about donating to them directly and then after clearing it with Putters decided to launch a larger effort on Go Fund Me.

Definitely understand the skepticism given how many scams are going around taking advantage of the situation but I can assure you the money will be going directly to Putters and their staff.
Click to expand...

Great, thanks. Adding some to the pot! Good luck.
 
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