#Duke would understand her plight and feel for her but he also says that it’s because he understands it that he can’t let shit slide

[starlooove]

What they don’t tell you about doing shit ur bad at for fun is that ur still worried about ppl seeing it 💀💀💀

[true-blue-sonic]

Would you say that Silver is empathetic?

Hmm, I find that an intriguing question. Let's see... One definition of empathetic is "having the ability to imagine how someone else feels". Empathy meanwhile means "the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation". Thus, it means that you experience the same as another person going through an emotion in a situation: if they are happy, you are; if they are sad, you are. This is how empathy differs from sympathy, which is that you feel understanding and care for someone when they are suffering. They are thus slightly different: the best sentence I found that describes it is "sympathy is feeling for someone, while empathy is feeling with someone".

So, for Silver to be empathetic, it would mean that he can both imagine how someone else feels and can feel the same, apparently based on his own personal experiences. And thus, I find this question hard to answer, because I find it difficult to objectively prove when a character is feeling an emotion that another is also feeling in a game. But that being said, we do see Silver express sorrow a few times when bad things happen to those around him. The main scene I have in my head is '06, where the Duke has just died and the Flames of Disaster are sealed in child!Elise. It is a bit hard to tell with the awkward yoinky movements, but Silver seems quite distraught:

Notably, in the first picture he's not blinking: his eyes stay closed for far longer than just a blink (about 2 seconds, I would say). In grief, perhaps? Elise just took on a huge plight while having no say in it at all and the Duke died, and Silver is notably not immediately running off to take the princess to a safe place like her father asked; instead he seems remarkably stricken by it all, like he needs some time to process it.

In the cutscene after, where Shadow and Silver meet up again, Silver's response to Shadow's question if he "did it" (seal Iblis), Silver's answer is a "...Yes. The 'Flames' are properly sealed". There's a bit of pause before he answers, and he's also not looking at Shadow while he says it. And when Shadow tells him it is time to return, Silver responds with another hesitant "Yes... Of course...", that his voice actor makes sound almost unwilling. He has also not moved from Elise's side the whole time since putting her down against the tree. And in his own story after Shadow has left, he very tenderly gives her his Chaos Emerald with the urging that it is a lucky charm, when he hears her call out for her father. I think all that combined can be seen as an indication that he feels very bad for her. And lastly, when Elise dies, he also seems to hold himself back in sadness for a bit, with his head drooping and his hands balling into fists:

What is also interesting is his argument with Amy in '06, wherein she chastises him for wanting to kill Sonic. He's clearly thrown off by it and is left saddened as she leaves him:

And more importantly, the reason Silver came to the past, namely to stop the Iblis Trigger and his actions, gets put a temporary stop to. In the cutscene after, Silver specifically wonders if it is right to kill someone to save the world: in other words, is it alright to hurt one person to help many? The fact that he can muse it over and the fact he is thinking in terms of 'hurting' and 'helping' others might relate to sympathy and empathy. He's clearly seen that there is someone out there who loves an alleged to-be-world-destroyer and who would follow that person to the end of the world. I would say the fact the Iblis Trigger is cherished by someone is making Silver hesitant about killing him, because there are others (alongside Sonic himself) that will be hurt by Sonic's death. That does feel like empathy to me.

But with those examples from '06 out of the way... I cannot think so much of other games wherein Silver expresses either sympathy or empathy for other people. Definitely not in the Rivals games, Colours DS, or Generations, because there's just nothing dramatic and saddening like deaths and stuff happening in those games. Maybe in Forces? When the Resistance is infiltrating the Death Egg, Silver heatedly says "That's one more thing Eggman will answer for!" when Vector and Espio imply that Eggman apparently murdered/otherwise rid himself of his prisoners there. However on the other hand, Silver kind of doesn't really express either sympathy or empathy when Amy is sad about Sonic having "died" in Forces: he focuses more on (bluntly) underlining the facts of the situation they are in, namely that Sonic is "dead" and Tails has "just lost it". But then again, in the Japanese version he's a bit more kind about it, saying he "wishes he could believe that, but the reality is..." instead. Although, that could be more his direct and self-proclaimed realistic nature and the fact Sonic has been "dead" for six months already, maybe?

So... yeah. I think overall, Silver is susceptible to feeling sadness when bad things are happening around him, especially in the heat of the moment. He can also think about what consequences his actions have on others, especially related to causing them hurt. And he can express anger at the mistreatment others have faced. But perhaps the best way I can put it is simply that Silver isn't involved in so many stories that have things happening where you would expect empathy, so to say. The main game that I would say had a dramatic story with many saddening plot points was '06, where we see him be rather distraught at Elise's and the Duke's fates. That aside, there aren't many games that come after that have him in it and that focus on plots like that. So my answer overall is that Silver can indeed feel saddened or angry concerning others' situations, but it is not often shown because the plots do not dive into such situations much. And whether he feels sympathy or empathy, I am not too sure: at the top of my head, I cannot think of an example wherein Silver expresses the same emotions as another because he is putting himself in their shoes.

[lapinbunwrites]

I know with @fe-oc-week is over but I still have one oc left to talk about because she gives me so much brainrot. Art is a commission I had done by the lovely @/cathpunn on IG!

Day 1: Introductions

Her name is Amelia von Atalanta/Amelia Fraldarius and she is the second daughter of Baron Atalanta. She was born in a small village in the Alliance Territory.

She has a very crest called the crest of Atalanta, which hasn't been seen since the War of Heroes. It's a very powerful one where whatever emotion they are feeling, the weather changes and increases their magical ability by 25%. It also has a very big recoil, the more they use it, the more it does damage to her body.

Up until she went to the Officers Academy she was described as emotionless and as cold as Northern Faerghus winters. They do have a sharp tongue and can be very straightforward and blunt. She constantly kept her emotions to herself and in check. But when they left the academy and making new friends who saw her as human, she is a very kind, caring, and warm woman.

Amelia got a few nicknames, The Sword of the Alliance and The Winter Rose by people in the Alliance. The nicknames Rodrigue gave them was My Rose and Little Rose.

Her interests include new fighting techniques, eating new food and learning how to cook or bake them, and weapons. They like cooking, baking, sewing, singing, dancing with Rodrigue, and roses. Her dislikes are her father, her sister, Godfrey, Tiana, fighting, and hunting.

Day 2: Relationships

Godfrey: Amelia despises Godfrey. He never appreciated her and her work. He constantly overworked her and always gave her too many missions. They were always in his shadows with wits and tactics. No matter what they did, Godfrey would always criticizes their way of working and would often reprimand them. She never felt like she meant anything to him.

Tiana: Amelia despises Tiana. They never got along and were always fighting with each other. Every time Amelia did something, it always seemed like it was a plight against Tiana. They always found each other annoying but only put up with each other until something big happened in their lives. Amelia always was in the shadows of Tiana in beauty and her boundless cheer.

Judith: While Judith is Tiana's best friend, Amelia would do their best to avoid her, only talking to her when need be. They have a mutual understanding that they were to protect the Riegan family. They aren't very close and Amelia just thinks she is a nuisance that might get her in trouble with Tiana. Judith thinks of them as very lose friend that she wishes to be close with.

Erwin: Amelia hates Erwin with a passion. He would do anything to rile her up to get her mad and get them in trouble, not knowing the serious repercussions of his actions. He always ending up getting badly hurt, or something worse happened. Regardless, Erwin had so much fun making her mad or pranking her.

Duke Goneril: Duke Goneril was one of her closest, and only, friends growing up. Even with the five age year difference, they were pretty close up until adulthood. They would always confide in each other and always helped each other out when they could. Duke Goneril was one of the very few people who knew most of her secrets. They were like siblings.

Rodrigue: Their relationship at first was very rocky. This was mostly due to their differing opinion of knighthood. She didn't like his uptightness about knighthood and his retainership. Since she figured that she would be stuck with him because of the repercussions that would happen to her and her village, she put in the effort being his partner. And when he put in the effort in their relationship, they started to fall in love with each other and he became the love her life and the person she trusted the most.

Lambert: Amelia and Lambert are like siblings to each other. They trust each other very much and would protect each other. They both say their minds to each other without any judgement.

Seraphina: Seraphina was one of Amelia's first true friends after Seraphina realized that Amelia was always left out of things with her own class. They bonded rather quickly and became like siblings to each other.

Raven: Raven was another really close friends to Amelia. Raven was one of the few people who knew that Amelia had a crest and knew that she was engaged to Rodrigue. Sometimes they butt heads, but they are still very close.

Matthias: Matthias' and Amelia's relationship is that one-sided sibling rivalry that takes place. Matthias, for some reason, always tries to one up Amelia and she never knows why. They constantly has to reassure him that they are very aware of his skill set and is happy to know that they can put their faith him to protect people.

Glenn: Amelia loves her oldest son very, very much. Right around, and after, Glenn's birth, she was very worried about his health and well-being. They weren't ever on great terms with Rodrigue's mother as she was constantly having them both killed. Because of this, she became very protective of him. Glenn was attached to her hip, or Rodrigue's growing up, but later became more independent and Amelia couldn't be more proud of him. Amelia is a little concerned that Glenn got their sharp tongue and sarcastic nature. She could only wish he didn't put so much pressure on himself and does something fun and a little wild.

Felix: Amelia loves her baby boy and was really thrilled that he was born. They would do a lot together and he would tell her everything. She is always very concerned about his health since he is always reckless and always doing dangerous things. She wishes her youngest son could take it easy and relax every once in awhile.

Elena: Elena is one of the most trusted confidant that Amelia had gotten and they trust her with the Fraldarius secrets and inner-workings of the house. While that being said, Elena is like a daughter that Amelia never got and she tries to spoil and tells her that they care about her as much as they can.

Day 3: Backstory

Amelia was born the second daughter of Baron Atalanta. She was born in a small village in the Alliance Territory. Growing up they had a hard time making any friends so she spent much time by themself. They try to stay to themself as much as possible, keeping any and all secrets that she had about herself to themself. She was constantly bullied by the people around her so she learned to keep her emotions to herself and had a hard time expressing her emotions. They do have a sharp tongue, and can be straightforward and blunt. She also tries to keep her emotions in check because of her crest and doesn't want to disrupt the weather patterns and end up destroying the earth.

She never really had a good relationship with her family, not after their mother dying. Their father was a greedy man that would suck her people dry. He never gave them the time of day and only used them as a way to climb the social latter since they had a crest and his oldest daughter didn't. Their sister never cared for them and only saw them as a selfish greedy person getting what they wanted and always getting the best 'stuff.'

When Amelia was young, she would often stray from her village and she stumbled upon an exiled kingdom knight that was near death. She was able to get help and save his life. He tried his best to convince him to be her retainer, but it never worked. After a few more attempts, he became her main care giver. Only a few months later, she walked into the forest to find someone else injured and she was able to save his life. This ended up being the biggest change of fate for them. The man they saved was Godfrey von Riegan. He demanded that they be his retainer. She refused multiple times but ended up accepting after her father forcing her to. Because of this, they ended up becoming retainer for the whole Riegan family.

As she grew up, she was groomed to be the perfect person to be married off to a richer noble for her family's gain. Because of this, she was sent to the best schools, especially to the Officers Academy. This is where their father found the richest of nobles. Since he couldn't marry his child to the Prince of Faerghus, he went with the next best thing, the next Duke of Fraldarius, Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius. This led her to become close friends with the Faerghun nobles and made true friendships with them.

Being in a relationship with Rodrigue, and having the friendships she had with the Faerghun Nobles, made her feel loved and welcomed for the first time. Because of this, she was able to open up a lot more and her true personality came out. She was this kind, caring, and warm person. She also has this air of kind elegance that she had around people.

During her time in the Academy their territory was attacked and burned to ashes. They were the sole survivor of the attack. They were devastated because they were the sole protector of the village from bandits, their father, or anyone who attacked the village and everything they worked to make the place happy and prosperous, was gone. It took them a while to feel better.

When she got married, she still had many ups and downs. Her mother-in-law didn't treat her well. She only saw Amelia as a person who would give birth to children with crests and only ever said terrible things to her. Rodrigue did everything he could to make sure that the never interacted with each other. When Rodrigue and Amelia were twenty-two years old, they had their first child, Glenn. Amelia was especially concerned about his well-being.

When Rodrigue's mother found out Glenn was crestless, she knew that Rodrigue loved Amelia and Glenn with his whole heart, she knew that he would never leave them, so she would devise multiple plans to have them both killed. This led to Rodrigue usurping the Dukedom and banishing his mother from the territory. With one last failed attempt to kill them, Rodrigue ended up having to kill his own mother to save the family he truly loved.

By the time Felix was born, the family was happy and cheerful and excited the second son existed. They always wanted to give their sons better than what they did. They gave them so much love and warmth.

Day 4: Tragedy

Amelia had a few tragedies in their life. The loss of their village, no one left but them. The loss of their two friends, Seraphina and Raven. And the third one would be the loss of Glenn, Elena, and Lambert. The people they cared for the most, gone.

Day 5: Joy

Amelia had quite a few when she got into the academy and afterwards. Befriending Seraphina, Raven, Lambert, and Rodrigue. Giving her heart and love to Rodrigue and having his heart and love returned to her. Getting her betrothal gift from Rodrigue, it was a rose hair pin. Giving Rodrigue his betrothal gift, it is the cape that he wears in 3 Houses/3 Hopes. Amelia receiving her wedding ring that was imbued with special magic so she can show her emotions with out any repercussions, it is rose shaped. Their first date with Rodrigue at the beach in Derdriu. Rodrigue and Amelia's wedding day. The birth of their sons, Glenn and Felix.

Day 6: Supports

Amelia's supports would be with Godfrey, Tiana, Judith, Duke Goneril, Erwin, Lambert, Rodrigue, Matthias, Raven, and Seraphina.

With Godfrey:

This would be about her retainership with him and how she felt about people with the other classes. It also be about her being sent on missions.

With Tiana:

Tiana would probably talking to her about a few things. Talking about Amelia's appearance, about Tiana's new crushes, and Amelia supposedly doing something that's a plight against Tiana.

With Judith:

It would be about Amelia being sent on missions and trying to get things done and trying to get them to relax a little bit. It would also probably be about their friendship and how it's not great.

With Duke Goneril:

Duke Goneril would just try to check up on Amelia, making sure they are doing alright and they aren't trying to overwork themself. Also just Duke Goneril being overly doting towards little baby Holst.

With Erwin:

Just them yelling at each other and bickering about one thing or another. It would also be Erwin complaining about nobles, commoners, and his distaste of Godfrey.

With Lambert:

Amelia and Lambert would be talking a little bit out their countries and the differences between them. They would also talk about the plans of Faerghus and stuff about retainership. Lambert would also be doting over Amelia and tell her that she was appreciated.

With Rodrigue:

It would be about their future together and learning things about each other and each other's home. Doing whatever they can to show that they love each other and show that they appreciate one another. They would plan on doing things with each other no matter how small.

With Matthias:

They would talk about training techniques with each other and train a lot. Matthias would also have this weird competition with her and she never understood why.

With Raven:

They talk a lot about magic and trying to figure out how to keep their crest under-wraps and help them to control it and their emotions. There is also a lot of gossip between the two of them.

With Seraphina:

This would be about Seraphina trying to get Amelia to lighten up and to relax. It would also be about them figuring out sometime to hang out and bond to become more like sisters.

Day 7: Endings

There are going to be a few because holy heck Felix wants to be Felix.

With Felix living in Azure Moon/Azure Gleam with Rodrigue dying:

"Amelia felt a pain in her heart when she saw that her beloved son, Felix, returned with Rodrigue's body. Shortly after giving her husband a proper funeral, she stepped down as Duchess Fraldarius and gave the title of Duke to Felix. She lived the rest of her days happy with her son and his children. Future generations told stories of her as a kind Duchess, known for her warmth, kindness and her love of roses. She became a saint of warmth, roses, and protection throughout history."

With Felix dying in Azure Moon/:

"Amelia felt so much pain when both her beloved son and husband were returned to House Fraldarius. After giving them both a proper funeral, she had no reason to stay in Fraldarius. She renounced her title as Duchess, giving the title over to her brother-in-law, and disappeared from the halls of history. The only thing said about them was their ability to heal people after the war and their love of roses."

With Felix dead in Silver Snow/Verdant Wind/Crimson Flower, and alive in Crimson Flower:

"With no reason to live in Fraldarius much longer, Amelia stepped down as Duchess Fraldarius, giving the position over to her brother-in-law. Their wasn't much said about them other than her will to help those in need after the war and that she loved roses."

With Felix alive in Verdant Wind/Silver Snow:

"With no reason to live in Fraldarius, Amelia stepped down as Duchess Fraldarius, giving the position to her brother-in-law. They traveled with Felix in his mercenary band, making sure everyone was healed and better after the war. Her story was told as a saint for her warmth, protection, and roses."

With Felix and Rodrigue alive in Azure Gleam:

"Amelia was relieved that both her beloved husband and son returned home safe and sound. They threw a party in the territory to help raise spirits of those around them before starting to restore their territory. Some time during the restoration, Rodrigue and Amelia gave stepped down from their position, giving it to Felix. Amelia spent the rest of her life happy with her husband, son, and grandchildren. Stories were told of her as a kind Duchess, known to help those around her with warmth, protection, and roses. She also became a saint throughout history for warmth, protection, and roses."

[amarylliasky]

So I’ve recently been thinking about the rejected prophecy au and how popular it was when they first came up with it. And I was scrolling through @rinas-ninjas blog and saw a piece for the au. I started thinking about how the tournament of elements would go in this au and how Lloyd would interact with the other EMs. I also remember something similar in a fic I read about it back when the au was popular. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find it anymore but it sparked the inspiration for this one. I thought it would be interesting to see something from Skylor’s POV as well, and thus this was born.

It’s my first time posting fanfiction so hopefully it’s not too bad?

Worth it for This

////

Skylor wasn’t blind.

She saw the green ninja. The way he unconsciously shrunk into himself when the other ninja were around. The way he tensed when one of them put a hand on his shoulders in front of the other masters.

She knew the green ninja was abused by his so called ‘family’, and she couldn’t do anything about it. It hurt, Seeing him put up with the taunting and pushing from the other ninja. But what could she do? She was just another competitor in this tournament. One who was mildly infatuated with the fire ninja.

Or, she was supposed to be. Until he showed his true colors.

Red seemed to suit him, as anger was all he ever showed when around the green ninja. That, and jealousy, which Skylor couldn’t understand. So what if the other was the prophesied savior of Ninjago? He was a ninja and the master of fire.

But she knew what power could do to people. All it took was a taste, and suddenly you do whatever it takes to come out on top. She’d seen it in her father, still sees it, she sees it in all of the competitors in the tournament, and she’s seen it in herself.

But that lust for power was something she never expected to see in the saviors of Ninjago.

It almost made her want to ditch the plan altogether.

Almost.

——-

It was day two of the tournament and the plan was going well, all things considered.

Faking nervousness was easier than she thought it would be. Especially when compared to pretending to like the fire ninja.

Kai, as she found out from listening in on their conversation, was quite cocky. He truly believed he was impressing her. She would have found it cute, if not for the fact that his idea of impressing her was talking down on the master of energy. If she had to listen to him talk about how useless the element of energy was one more time, she was going to blow her cover.

“Hey, why don’t you sit with us. There’s plenty of room at our table.” He says gesturing towards a seat in the crowded booth. Pointedly ignoring the distraught look on the green ninja’s face.

“But Kai, we have to stick to-“

“Shut it Floyd.” At the master of Lightning’s interruption, he immediately quiets.

Fortunately, Garmadon takes that moment to usher him to another-thankfully unoccupied table.

“Come Lloyd, I would like to talk to you. Privately.” He says looking pointedly at the other three ninja.

So Lloyd was his name then. Huh..She might have to remember that.

...

Apparently the ninja were the ones caught infiltrating her fathers ceremony after the master of metal’s defeat. She wasn’t surprised. Neither was she surprised that her father put the earth ninja and lightning ninja against each other in the next round.

Good, serves them right for treating their teammate like trash.

It was entertaining at first, watching them duke it out in the arena. They seemed to already have an intense hatred for each other. Unfortunately they sided together and the black ninja, Cole, she kept having to remind herself, sacrificed himself at the end. All the while she had to pretend to feel sorry for them.

The ninja don’t seem to know everyone is out to get them. Although most of the elemental masters seem to have caught on to Lloyd’s situation. Which means that their plight with the ninja is more to do with their mistreatment of their teammate, and less about their hostility towards the other contestants. Still, Skylor can’t help but feel bad about what’s going to happen. Hopefully she can convince her father to let the green ninja and his father go after all of this is over.

As of right now though, she was trying to very discreetly help the kid out by using the master of form’s power and knock down her own teammates. She may not like the ninja, but she wasn’t going to let the kid lose and be taken to the factory because his teammates couldn’t give a crap. They were only on his team because of Garmadon, which they made abundantly clear when Kai hit his back, causing him to fall behind.

She may as well try to give the kid a break.

Skylor skated over to where Kai had once again fallen due to lack of experience and general skill. “Your teammate looks like he’s struggling out there.” She helps him up, watching as he looks to where the green ninja is skating. “He could use a little help.”

Of course he did have some help. A few contestants sided with him, if only to lighten the load that the other ninja made worse. But most of them decided to side with Chamille, mostly just to teach the other two a lesson.

Kai sneered. “He’s fine” he then starts skating toward the goal at a leisurely pace, as if he’s taking a walk in the park. “He’s the green ninja, he doesn’t need our help. If he wants to stay in the tournament he’s got to put in the effort.”

Skylor just skates away. If he wants his teammate to lose, fine. He’ll get what’s coming to him in the end.

...

Tricking Kai into following her through the jungle was remarkably easy. She would laugh, if she wasn’t trying desperately to act like she still liked him.

They were currently walking through the tunnels. Kai was trying to convince her to join them and defeat her father. In truth, she has been considering it. If only because her father was a power hungry lunatic and she didn’t want to have to hurt Lloyd. She felt sorry for him, her father was undoubtedly having him brought in chains to where the ceremony was to take place. He didn’t deserve it. That’s why she would help Kai with his plan to take down her father. If only so Lloyd could live his life in peace with his dad.

...

Kai has officially gone off the deep end. As he is currently standing before them with her father’s staff in hand, about to attack Lloyd.

“YOU HAD ALL THE POWER!” Kai says, advancing on them “NOW IT’S MY TURN!” Skylor wonders if that’s the staff talking or Kai himself. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter.

Lloyd has a look of absolute fear in his eyes as he tries to shield her from his teammate’s wrath.

“I SHOULD’VE BEEN THE GREEN NINJA!” Now that is something she knows is really coming from Kai, and she has to do something before Lloyd is struck down by his own powers.

She pushes Lloyd behind her, knowing she has no protection against her father’s staff that holds more power than he’s ever encountered.

Lloyd looks at Kai from behind her “No Kai! Don’t!” Just as Kai is about to fire it. a massive drill comes through the wall, taking out half the room.

Kai’s sister quickly destroys the staff, freeing all the elemental powers inside it.

Overall, Skylor is glad she’s not a ninja. And glad she can finally drop the act of trying to be nice to them.

.....

It’s over.

Her father is in the Cursed Realm, sent there by Garmadon in order to save Ninjago. Skylor wishes there was another way to win. Lloyd has been through too much pain for someone so young. She remembers how young she was when her mother passed. Her father only growing more obsessed with power and trying to gain his own. In a way, she can relate. He may not have loved her, but he was still her father. And a part of her would always miss him.

When Kai comes to talk to her, she doesn’t spare him a glance as she walks passed him towards where Lloyd and Nya are standing near their flying ship.

“Hey you two” They turn to face her, each having a look of mild recognition on their faces as she approaches. “Me and the elemental masters were about to head back to the restaurant to debrief, care to join?”

Lloyd looks skeptical, as if she’s going to decline her offer or reveal it as just a joke, but Nya smiles at her “We’d love to. We could all use a little rest after today” She says, looking over at Lloyd, who looks shocked at her answer.

“Perfect, they’ll be glad that you accepted” Skylor says, turning to where the others are looking at them.

And the look on the black ninja’s face when she rejects his request to join made this battle just a little more worth it.

And when they’re all seated at three large tables put together at her restaurant, and Lloyd looks over at her with a small but genuine smile and mutters a “thanks”, she can’t help but be grateful to her father for bringing them all together.

Of course, next time she happens to see the ninja, she’ll be sure to tell them they’re all banned from her restaurant.

Except for Lloyd and Nya. They’re welcome to noodles on the house anytime.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 13: MEPHILES

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a mini-series of mine, in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll be covering the malevolent spirit of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, and #1 Shadow cosplayer across the nation: Mephiles the Dark.

The Gist: On Sonic's 15th anniversary, a little game was released. You might have heard of it. People like to bring it up a lot, regardless of the time or reason. It's called Sonic the Hedgehog, ostensibly, but we tend to call it Sonic '06.

It did not live up to expectations.

But what's the story?

Life was suffering for poor Silver the Hedgehog. His world was ravaged by a fire monster, he could never truly defeat said fire monster no matter how hard he tried, and his sole companion was only there because the writers didn't understand how backstories work. Things appeared to be looking up for him though, when he was approached by a mysterious black hedgehog, who offered a permanent solution to the hero's seemingly fruitless quest. Silver looked at this hedgehog with no mouth, slitted eyes, and ominous deep voice, and accepted the offer without hesitation.

"If only they knew..." *wink*

The completely trustworthy hedgehog reasoned that in order to destroy the Flames of Disaster, Iblis, Silver must destroy the one who unleashed it in the first place. The "Iblis Trigger", if you will. Who is this catalyst though, according to this perfectly benevolent hedgehog? None other than Sonic the Hedgehog, the hero of whatever Sonic's world is called this week. No more Sonic, no more Iblis, so says the absolutely well-intentioned hedgehog. Silver accepts all of this without question, because his intelligence ranks somewhere between "potato" and "Madoka Magica protagonist". He's then sent on his way by the definitely good-natured hedgehog through the means of time travel. This is barely questioned as well.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Shadow the Hedgehog is doing his duties as a new member of G.U.N, as they were fortunately able to make amends and can now look back and laugh at the time they killed his friend. His mission is to assist fellow agent Rouge the Bat in the kingdom of Soleanna, and when he catches up to her, she reveals a peculiar discovery: a tool known as the Book Scepter of Darkness.

Even the PS3 lighting couldn't contain its power.

After a brief discussion about the kingdom's history, they made their way through the ruins of the ancient Soleanna castle, where Anti-Furry Activist Dr. Eggman was waiting for them, in the hopes that they would politely give the Book Scepter of Darkness to him. The two comrades tussle with some of the doctor's robots, but the Book Scepter suffers in the midst of the crossfire, and is destroyed completely... releasing a slightly phallic surge of dark energy in the process. Eggman promptly gets the fuck out of there, and the darkness soon takes the form of Shadow himself... and the same hedgehog that would appeal to Silver's wishes. He also knows who Shadow is.

"Fucking hell, this is my design...?"

His name? Mephiles the Dark.

Not Mephisto.

Not Mephistopheles.

Mephiles.

The Dark.

Mephiles the Dark.

Mephiles the Evil.

Mephiles the Hoodlum.

Mephiles the Wrong'un.

Mephiles the Right Prick.

So you know he's a villain who demands to be taken seriously.

Mephiles quickly sends Shadow and Rouge on what he dubs "a one-way ticket to oblivion", which is actually just the same place where Eggman forcibly sent Sonic away to, alongside his buddies Tails and Knuckles. It's Silver's time period, the one plagued by the Flames of Disaster. Shadow contemplates these recent happenings as the colour palette suddenly dies for no reason.

A minor disappointment in an otherwise high-quality gaming experience.

Since the computers in this horribly ruined world still work better than Windows Vista, they use one of them to figure out the nature of their plight, and maybe check out Craigslist while they're at it. They are understandably concerned about the answer, as a madman with time travelling capabilities is no laughing matter. Shadow takes this potential threat very seriously, and he will not be distracted under any circumstance.

When they meet up with Team Sonic, they decide to work together in order to figure out how to get back to their time, because friendship truly is magic. Along the way, Shadow and Rouge discover the dusty form of a sleeping E-123 Omega, and they leave him there. Because friendship truly is magic.

Soonafter, the five of them encounter Iblis, and a tedious battle ensues until Iblis itself gets bored and fucks off. Using the power of two Chaos Emeralds, they induce Chaos Control, which in this game means...

*spins Deus Ex Machina wheel*

...they go back in time. Alright then.

So they do. Except for Shadow, who catches sight of the evil Mephiles the Dark and immediately gives chase. Mephiles has a surprise for him however... another Shadow. An imprisoned Shadow. Mephiles claims that he was used as a scapegoat for what happened with Iblis, which naturally unnerves the Ultimate Lifeform.

RAW EMOTION

Mephiles offers Shadow to join him in his cause for justice, under the belief that humanity hates Shadow, humanity fears Shadow, and humanity will make a martyr out of Shadow the first chance they get. Unfortunately for Mephiles, Black Doom said all this beforehand, and he's dead now, cause Shadow ain't taking this shit anymore. He made a promise to the Professor and Maria, and he intends to keep it. It's time to live up to his family name, and face Full Life Consequences™.

They fought.

Shadow won.

With a little help from a non-dusty, present day Omega, who was sent by Rouge.

Mephiles escaped with his time travel prowess, and Shadow and Omega followed after him. They arrived back in the present, but with no sign of the deadly demon. Meanwhile, said demon was reiterating to Silver that Sonic is totally the Iblis Trigger he's after, absolutely, dead-on. Silver barely questions him once more, and as punishment for his extreme foolishness, Shadow finds him and teaches him a lesson in pain.

"I'm Shadow the Hedgehog. Get shanked. This is who I am."

During battle, they accidentally induce Chaos Control together, which summons another time portal that Shadow somehow already knows in advance where it'll take them. They travel to ten years prior, where they find the then-alive ruler of Soleanna, the Duke, attempting valiantly to harness the energy of the omnipotence known as Solaris. Instead, he gets an explosion in the face, and Solaris divides itself into two different entities. Aggressive flames, and a mass of darkness... Iblis and Mephiles. They were two halves of the same being the whole time.

The two hedgehogs split up to stop the two halves from escaping. Thanks to the Book Scepter of Darkness the dying Duke gave him, Shadow successfully seals the formless Mephiles away, thus explaining how Mephiles knew who Shadow was ten years later. Shadow and Silver eventually return to the present, but not before Silver laughs in the face of Sonic continuity and gives his blue Chaos Emerald to the young Princess Elise, the daughter of the recently Wasted™ Duke.

After reuniting with Rouge, and after obtaining a brand new Book Scepter of Darkness, Shadow and her learn that E-123 Omega is engaging Mephiles, meaning they must head to Wave Ocean (head to Wave Ocean?)... ... ...Shadow and her learn that E-123 Omega is engaging Mephiles, meaning they must head to Wave Ocean immediately. (Sorry about that, I'll fix it in post.)

Omega was indeed engaging Mephiles. Very easily at that. Yet Mephiles took his humiliation in stride and escaped while laughing all the way. Omega confesses to Shadow that he is in fact the one who will go on to imprison him in the future. Rouge reassures her old friend that even if the rest of the world turns against him, she'll always be at his side no matter what. Shadow in turn expresses gratitude for one of the only instances of good writing in this game, and the three of them leave for Dusty Desert, where Mephiles is hiding away like a Scooby Doo baddie.

When they finally confront Mephiles, he tries the exact same tactic that failed to bring Shadow over to his side to bring Shadow over to his side. He did not succeed in bringing Shadow over to his side.

"Ugh, blackcurrant."

They fought again.

Shadow won again.

And with the new and improved Book Scepter of Darkness, he seals the villain away once more... for about five seconds, before the Book Scepter unexpectedly tears itself apart. The fiend has apparently developed an immunity to this old song and dance.

"Now for my next trick, I shall make my credibility disappear!"

He then summons a whole pack of Mephiles's's's's's to do away with Team Dark. But unbeknownst to him, Shadow has a trick of his own up his non-existent sleeve. By removing his inhibitor rings, he could become even more needlessly overpowered for a limited period of time. This was more than enough to send the army of clones flying like skittles.

Alas, the real Mephiles escaped yet again. And this time, he topped himself by fulfilling IGN's dreams and killing Sonic the Hedgehog himself. The older Princess Elise, his latest friend, was grief-stricken.

RAW EMOTION

Unable to keep her emotional turmoil in check, the princess wept, which released the mighty Iblis into the present time. As it turns out, this was Mephiles' real plan all along. He intended for Silver to kill Sonic so that Elise's ensuing tears would unleash the flames, but he finally decided to do the deed himself. Using all seven Chaos Emeralds, which he warped them to where he was like it was nothing, Mephiles rejoined with Iblis once more, and Solaris was officially back in business to corrupt reality as he saw fit. Time distortion? Environmental disasters? Soulja Boy game consoles? It's all the work of Solaris.

But while Solaris was fucking time and space's shit up, Sonic's friends (and Silver) gathered all the Emeralds together, and with some... curious assistance from Elise, they brought the dead hedgehog back to life. In his super form, no less. Shadow and Silver were granted some of Super Sonic's power in order to turn super themselves, and the Hedgehog Master Race obliterated Solaris so bad that he reverted to his original form of a tiny white flame... which was soon blown out by Elise, despite knowing that time would reset itself in the process. The threat of losing her memories with Sonic took a toll on her, but with the hedgehog's own encouragement, she pulled through regardless.

Merry Christmas.

Thus, from the Soleanna Festival onward, everything started over. This time around, the festival could commence in peace, as Eggman wasn't there to menace the princess with his golden udders. For the Flames of Disaster, Iblis, Mephiles, Solaris... they were all literally forgotten by time itself until Generations. Why they were now holding a festival for a god who never existed remains a mystery, but Elise couldn't help but feel that the "wind" was strangely familiar, and pleasantly so.

That same wind enjoyed a good night, possibly aware of what he had to go through to get there.

"That's a lovely full moon. A lovely full, whole, complete, non-fractured moon. Would be a shame if something happened to it."

The Design: Mephiles spends his initial scenes as a shit recolour.

"This is my Chaos Emerald OC, his name's Genocide the Blitzkrieg."

On the other hand, he spends his later scenes as a shit recolour.

He can't believe it either.

Which is a shame, because there is an appeal in the concept of a shadowy being made of crystal. It's just incredibly undermined by how it's mimicing Shadow's form, and for little justified reason at that. Outside of a single quip about him being Shadow's shadow, Mephiles doesn't really do anything to warrant the "Evil Shadow" angle he's apparently going for, which makes his recolour status even more pointless.

(And yes, I know his chest hair kind of looks like Solaris. That doesn't mean his design is suddenly good or clever.)

The Personality: Remember how Black Doom was a complete and utter void of evil for its own sake? Good, beause Mephiles is exactly the same, and it could be argued that he's actually worse than Mr. Ten Packs a Day.

Oh sure, you say. He might have a motive in the form of wanting vengeance for being experimented on. Too bad this is not established in any way whatsoever with what we see of Mephiles in the game proper. When he's not transparently fooling Silver, he spends all his time cackling and taunting. Any time he brings up humanity is when it involves Shadow's expense, not his own. His goal to rejoin with Iblis isn't given any tragic or sympathetic angle, and is purely to serve as his Cause Even More Destruction Card. Even Shadow lampshades his lack of motivation beyond craving destruction, and you can’t say his imprisonment in the Book Scepter of Darkness made him go mad, because even before he got sealed the first time around, he was already threatening Shadow with death.

And make no mistake, not all villains need to be especially sympathetic. Villains who are just cruel or selfish bastards for petty reasons can work just fine. Eggman does it beautifully in this very franchise. But Eggman is also funny, brave, intelligent, and has a clear motive beyond evulz that's backing up his actions, despite that motive's simplicity.

What else is there to Mephiles?

His weird attempts at being cryptic...?

"Is Lara-Su Chronicles legit?"

His lackadaisical Crash Bandicoot impression...?

Cortex Laughs Back

There's just nothing to this guy. And for a character with his backstory, it's all the more noticeable and disappointing. But hey, at least he's a cunning schemer and a powerful opponent, right?

Well, about that...

The Execution: I'm going to get straight to the point. I don't like Mephiles. I really don't like Mephiles. Next to Scourge the Hedgehog and Eggman Nega, Mephiles is one of my absolute least favourite characters in the entire Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, adaptations included.

"But why is that?", I hear you not asking. "Why do you detest him so? Is it his design? Is it his lack of personality? Is it his story?"

Those are all key ingredients, yes. But more than anything else, it's that he's played up to be a cunning mastermind, and is regularly applauded even by '06's detractors for being a cunning mastermind... when in reality, he is one of the absolute dumbest characters in the whole franchise. No, that is not an exaggeration. Silver and Elise in the same game were far from flawless, but Mephiles deserves much more ridicule than either of them. He is completely undeserving of the kudos he frequently receives for his supposed magnificent bastardry, and I'm about to tell you why.

Strap in, folks.

We're about to go through why the evil plan of poor Leslie makes no sense whatsoever.

Well done in advance if you don't fall asleep.

Too late.

1. He could have fused with Iblis at any time he wanted. Despite what many fans claim, NOTHING in the final game so much as implies that Mephiles needed certain requirements to fuse with Iblis. Meaning he could have completed his mission at the beginning of the game, from the moment he met Silver for the first time. Instead, he’d rather monologue to Silver and butcher the English language.

Guess I'll go and done that.

Let’s put that aside for a moment though, and assume that Mephiles needed the Chaos Emeralds to fuse with Iblis. That’s reasonable, except...

2. He could warp all seven Chaos Emeralds to his destination immediately. That’s an incredibly useful ability to have, especially when you're plotting something as major as reuniting with the other half of a god-like entity. He has no reason to not use this ability as soon as possible, aside from him simply forgetting he could do it.

Well, Silver had to have some vital role in his plan, surely...?

3. He had no use whatsoever for Silver. He goes out of his way to rely on Silver to eliminate Sonic, but he could easily kill Sonic himself with no trouble at all. Nothing is preventing him from killing Sonic. He’s not trapped somewhere. He’s not been sapped of his powers. All he’s guaranteeing with Silver is giving himself a potential enemy in the future when the jig is inevitably up, and sure enough, in the rare moment when Silver actually questions him, Mephiles dodges the query in the most suspicious manner, and always gives vague, shifty half-answers.

Fig A: The Twitter defense.

He’s only complicating things even more for himself, and again, for no reason. His only potential motivation for manipulating Silver is because it’s the evil thing to do. And the only reason Silver falls for his ruse is because he was made to be a complete idiot in order to make Mephiles look smarter than he actually is. Not that Silver was alone in that department...

But you think “Well, maybe Mephiles is tricky, but not actually that strong. So he needs Silver to kill Sonic since he can’t do it on his own.” It would explain why he’s a damage sponge in his boss fights, and why he relies on minions and clones to do all the work, right?

Nope.

He eventually kills Sonic himself anyway. Which leads us to...

4. He has no limitations to his powers. You might be inclined to assume he would be weak, yet smart, in contrast to Iblis being strong, yet dumb. Admittedly that would make logical sense, and it would tie in thematically to their motifs of being the consciousness and the raw power of Solaris respectively.

But that’s not how it went. Maybe that was the intention (again, note how he’s something of a sitting duck when you get past his minions), but in cutscenes, he’s as much of a powerhouse as the likes of Shadow. Which reinforces the fact that he wasted his time with Silver, because he could have - and did - kill the Blue Blur with his own hands.

But at least he actually killed Sonic, right? After all, that was the key to unleashing Iblis courtesy of Elise’s tears, yes? Weeeellll...

5. He could have killed Elise instead. Elise’s crying is NOT the only way to release Iblis from within her. As the report that Tails read in Crisis City confirmed, Elise had died in that time period due to being aboard the exploding Egg Carrier, and Iblis’ presence is very prominently felt in that time period’s future. So Mephiles could have killed the princess herself and achieved the same results, without ever needing to bother with Sonic and/or Elise’s emotional connection to him.

Okay then, what about Shadow? Mephiles was pretty serious about swaying the Ultimate Lifeform over to his side... wasn’t he...?

6. He wasted his time with Shadow too. Like Silver, his frequent mind games with Shadow served him absolutely no benefit in relation to his goal to reunite with Iblis. He wasn’t even truly invested in turning Shadow evil to begin with. Whenever Shadow tells him to fuck off back to the Antarctic, Mephiles shrugs it off every time. It’s just a game to him, and it’s a game that prolongs his objective even further. Compare this to Black Doom, who at least was genuinely committed in getting Shadow to join him, and as dumb as it was, at least Shadow was actually a vital part in Doom’s scheme.

"It's just... I wasn't ready before... I wasn't sure if I could commit..."

Despite everything however, he still managed to become Solaris in the end. How did he lose then...?

7. He threw the Chaos Emeralds away, thereby giving Sonic’s friends a chance to nab the Emeralds themselves. Which of course revived Sonic, turned him super, and you know the rest. He could have kept the Emralds to himself, or maybe even destroy them outright. Instead, he was generous enough to hammer the final nail in his coffin.

Also, what did he intend to do afterwards? When all of time and space was destroyed, would that have included himself? Or would he have sat around with his thumb up his arse in a featureless void for all of eternity? Your guess is as good as mine.

And finally, let’s go over a few leftover arguments:

“But Crusher, he still KILLED SONIC!”

You’re right, he did. But how did he kill Sonic?

Not by beating him in a fight.

Not by using genuine brilliance.

No... he killed Sonic by distracting him with a light, and stabbing him from behind.

This is hardly flattering for either character. Sonic gets a laughably undignified death, and Mephiles’ method of execution is extremely unimpressive. And on top of that, the dynamic between the hero and the villain falls flat, because there is no dynamic. Sonic himself doesn’t have any kind of connection or relationship with Mephiles, because up until his death, he saw Mephiles a grand total of once. And even then, he knew nothing about him, not even his name. So the person who killed Sonic the Hedgehog - from Sonic the Hedgehog’s point of view - was literally just “some guy”. (Sonic didn’t even acknowledge his existence. It was Knuckles who did that.)

“But Crusher, he still played the other characters for fools!”

You know who else can do that? Del Boy. :P

Mephiles only looks like a master manipulator because with the sole exception of Shadow, the rest of the cast suffered the same fate as Silver. Instead of Mephiles being genuinely intelligent, everyone else is made insanely stupid to hide the fact that Mephiles himself is stupid. Instead of him achieving his goals because he’s legitimately talented or brilliant, he “achieves his goals” because the plot hands them over to him on a silver platter.

“But Crusher, Eggman makes mistakes too!”

That’s true. Eggman does make mistakes. However, there are two small but significant differences that render this comparison moot:

1. None of Eggman’s blunders are on the same tier as Mephiles’ fuck ups. An Eggman mistake is putting an obvious weakspot on his giant boss mech. A Mephiles mistake is going out of his way to jeopardise his entire plan from start to finish.

2. For all his intelligence, Eggman has always had a comedic, goofy edge to his character, so the occasional questionable decision is expected and par for the course for that particular character. Mephiles does not have that excuse. He was intended by the writers to be suave and slick, meaning he has a lot more to lose when he makes consecutive dumbass decisions.

......

I think I’ve made my point. Mephiles the Dark’s reputation vastly overshadows his actual capabilities. To appreciate what he could have been, or what he was meant to be, is one thing. But I’m looking at Mephiles for what he is, in the final product. And what he is in the final product, is one of the worst villains this franchise has ever had. People can laugh it up about Infinite, or the Deadly Six, but they have nothing on this guy. No amount of Dan Green can save him, and while I don’t like to put all of a character’s fans in the one basket, I do strongly believe that at least a sizable margin of his popularity stems from the fact that he’s a hedgehog. Either that, or the fact that he killed Sonic, despite how underwhelming that kill really was.

I’ve went on long enough about Mephiles. Anything else at this point would just be redundant. Here’s a bunch of old memes I’ve made in the past at Leslie’s expense. Enjoy.

Also, his name is dumb.

Crusher Gives Mephiles a: Thumbs Down!

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 4X07 - The Snow Queen

Looks like Emma’s facing a real cr-ICE-is in today’s episode!!! XD

As always, the review’s under the cut, so drop on by if you dare! BWHAHAHAH!!

Main Takeaways

Past

A big point in the segment is how Ingrid needs to give up the ribbons in order to get the gloves and urn. Rumple says that with enough emotional attachment, ordinary objects get magical values. When Gerda and Helga protest the exchange, Ingrid points out that the ribbons are a symbol of their love and that their actual love is stronger. The episode frames this as a poor decision, but that’s not a sentiment I agree with. While yes, the ribbons do indeed have a magical value, Ingrid’s right: Their real love is stronger. This is such a big element of other themes in other episodes (Basically EVERYTHING with Rumple dagger and the flashback in “White Out” come to mind), where symbols matter less than the power within and to see the raming reverse itself without any substantive self awareness is a weird choice. Ingrid’s fear of her powers and resolve to be a shut is indeed a problem, but the handling of this red herring solution stands out as an awkward choice. And then it reverses itself again with “we are your fail safe.” The idea of the value of objects over family goes back and forth like a tennis ball during a game of fetch.

And I can’t help but be on Ingrid’s side here. She’s not giving up her sisters. She’s giving up three ribbons so that she can have control over her magic and be able to go out in public with them, rule the kingdom, and just live her life. Their love is still there, but something that’s going to give Ingrid a tangible feeling of safety will be present too. And I feel like Gerda and Helga’s protests are nothing but platitudes.

Let’s also talk about the ending. Gerda, who shows so much love for her sister throughout the segment, grows terrified of her as Ingrid, the only other voice, testifies to her innocence to Helga’s death just before putting her in the urn. Like, had the Duke said something to Gerda either before the scene or during it, the fear would’ve worked better, but as it stands, it’s a weird shift for Gerda that works okay enough, but could’ve been better.

Present

There’s a lot to unpack here about Emma’s conflict. I can’t say that it’s improperly built up. This season and even the last finale have delicately pushed the idea of Emma’s magic still falling short in the face of a lack of a furthering of her education as well as her emotional issues. It’s usually a matter of her underperforming. This though is the first time we’ve ever seen it do the reverse. And I think it’s an interesting thing to explore. Not only is Emma new to magic, but she’s the only person in her family who has it. AND with the presence of a new brother and the Snow Queen manipulating her actions, things can get a little muddied from there. And while it is given a cursory look, there’s no focus to the why of the matter, choosing to try to be about all of these things while not diving into them. I feel horrible for Emma’s situation, so the tone of the episode is captured well and the framing does work perfectly, but the story itself is left kind of flabby.

I don’t do a worst dynamic on these reviews, but if I did, Snow and Emma would be it. Like, Jeez, Snow! Not even gonna hesitate pulling the baby back? Not gonna check on how your kid is feeling because I’m sure to some degree, you’re aware that magic is fueled by emotions? It’s a really shitty moment, but for me, a lot of what sucks about it is that while we’ve received hints about Snow’s apprehension towards Emma learning magic and the fandom has some pretty interesting theories about why Snow is so, we never hear it from the horse’s mouth. For that reason, Snow comes across as really cruel towards Emma for no reason.

On a lighter note in that regard, I used to really hate the outdoors scene with the light pole, finding Snow’s scolding of a terrified Emma to be disgusting, but upon watching it again, given the fact that Snow immediately changes her tone with Emma after scolding her shows very believable remorse. She knows this wasn’t Emma’s fault and that she needs support and love and she knows she failed to give her that. Granted, I’m not a fan of her telling David that the both of them fucked up when David didn’t react negatively to what happened and he even got into the situation to save Emma’s boyfriend (And also played a big role in trying to find her afterwards despite being injured when it really should’ve been the other way around). Like, Snow, that all was totally on you. But as for the initial outburst, I do find that it was handled better in hindsight.

That having been said, while I really dislike Snow’s reaction, I do like the pole scene by itself. It’s never wracking, has some great fast-paced editing, and is sympathetic to most everyone there. It’s as panicked as Emma feels and while I don’t like some of the buildup to that moment, I do like the moment itself and it feels earned enough. There’s a great element of tragedy to the scene too. Emma has tried so hard to overcome her walls and be a part of her family, but because her magic is out of control, she fears that she might not be able to.

As I watch this episode, I’m reminded of why I don’t really care for Robin. I swear I’m not trying to be anti-OQ or anything here, but it does infuriate me that Robin doesn’t even seem to TRY to fall back in love with Marian before getting turned down by Regina the second time. Feelings are valid and I understand that, but the fact of the matter is a person who Robin supposedly cares very much for (Even if the romantic feelings are lessened or gone, Robin would assumedly care about her as a former wife, a person, and the mother of his child) has a frozen heart and is in what is basically a coma and while the only foolproof solution to this lies with him, he’s putting in no effort to even TRY to save her by this point.

And I know what you’re thinking: He does try. At Granny’s, he and Will go over Robin and Marian’s story. And this did have me consider my stance. But the problem is that that’s all he does before just giving up and this isn’t framed as the complicated choice that it is. By all means, Robin, be happy that you love Regina, I’m not telling you not to. But acknowledge the fact that to be with Regina, you’re denying Marian what might be their best chance at saving her. (And the fact that Marian is Zelena of course isn’t a factor here as no one knew that at the time)

Because of all of this, I don’t feel all that sympathetic for his plight and I don’t find my belief that strong for the “code” he was so strongly speaking for in “A Tale of Two Sisters.” I’m with Regina -- that’s completely unfair to her as well as to Marian!

I also find myself a touch frustrated with Ingrid because a lot of the things that she comments on and acts like were her ideas are just random coincidences. I pointed this out, but the results of Emma and Elsa’s investigation haven’t been predetermined, but have resulted from spur-of-the-moment decisions that are usually made by third parties. Ingrid had no idea Emma even still had that video camera, let alone that she would play it and discover her and then investigate the ice cream truck. She had no idea that Belle would clue her into the mirror’s existence or even get that candle. And she had no idea that Emma was dealing with fear from Snow. And at some point OFF SCREEN, Emma apparently tells Ingrid about what happened at the Mommy and Me class or Ingrid brings up that she knows it. That especially irks me here. We see at the end that Ingrid did have a role to play in Emma’s bursts of magic, but because we don’t really see what it was that she did, it’s not effective.

“Sometimes even when you win, you lose.” I’m still annoyed that this is the most we ever got out Will as far as an explanation for his presence. Did Ana die? Did he get caught up in something Lily was doing, since A&E said that his story was related to Mal and Lily’s? At least now that the realms are merged, they can get back together, although their 15-ish years of separation sucks royally. :(

Stream of Consciousness

-Dude! That asshole just fucking KICKED Ingrid! Dude deserves to be BEHEADED!

-I wish the pacing was a smidge slower on this opening. Like, in just a flash, Ingrid discovers her powers, gets called a monster, panics, gets a fast speech, and then wham, things are mostly okay. Like, an additional second so that everyone could process even Ingrid’s powers or the fallen branch really would’ve helped for my money.

-It’s kind of weird how Elsa’s speech to Emma about how her family might look differently at her for her powers, however unintentional, is kind of the tipping point of this arc.

-Ingrid, I don’t want to tell you how to do your evil job, but if Emma hadn’t avoided that icicle, she’d be dead! You already have two dead sisters! A third won’t do you much good!

-Really! All three of them share a room? Granted, it’s a big room, but they’re royals! Not to mention, those beds are fulls at most! You telling me three royals, one of whom is the future queen, wouldn’t have bigger beds?

-Just saying, if I was Elsa, I would’ve followed in my little sister’s footsteps and decked her right in the schnoz.

-”...With your scary face on.” I love how Regina and Henry have that casualness to who they are! It shows how they’re grown!

-Ooh! I see some foreshadowing with Belle saving Killian from the secondary threat (The Shattered Sight Mirror)! Captain Book!

-I love that little flattered gesture Rumple makes when Ingrid calls him the most powerful magic collector in all the land. XD

-The Duke of Weasletown is a fucking creep and Helga is best character for putting him in his place!

-Ummm, I WANT A STORYBROOKE SNOW GLOBE, PLEASE!

-Loving that Rumple smile. Methinks something amazing is coming! XD Or rather, meknows something great is coming! *Rumple giggle*

Favorite Dynamic

Ingrid and Rumple. I love seeing villains interact and in this episode, Ingrid and Rumple do it really well. They act as overseeing deities playing with the chess pieces that they’ve made our heroes into through their manipulations and seeing them talk about circumstances so matter-of-factly is really interesting. I also love how they deal with each other. Watching their deal go through at the end of the episode is like watching a really interesting drug deal go down. Every action from Rumple securing the ribbons to holding onto one of them while waiting for his information to Ingrid whispering what he needs is so engaging! I always love scenes that despite the fact that I know what’s coming, I still get swept up in the action, and that is this episode in spades.

Writer

Adam and Eddy are today’s writers. I feel like this episode really needed more focus in its three main storylines. We’re given hints of character actions and through processes, but none of them ever go all the way. And I genuinely hope that I don’t sound like I’m incapable of putting these pieces together -- I promise you that I do get how these narrative points connect, but my issue is that they’re sometimes not tightly knit enough to support the big character moments and story points that they’re supposed to be able to support.

Rating

7/10. I’ve felt bad with some of these more recent reviews. Sometimes, it’s hard to communicate that despite the problems that I’m pointing out, I am enjoying myself. Like with “Family Business,” this isn’t a bad episode, but it just needs a bit more solidification. There’s a lot of cool ideas to work with here -- an examination of how Emma’s family views Emma’s magic, Robin trying and failing to recapture his love for Marian while in love with Regina, and Emma’s thoughts about her sibling come to mind. But while they dip their toes in that pool, little else is done. 

-----

Thank you all for reading! I think I did a better job here than I did with my “Family Business” review, but let me know if there’s something you want more elaboration on!

Shout out to @watchingfairytales and @daensarah!!!! See you guys next time!

Season 3 Total (49/230)

Writer Scores: Adam and Eddy: (16/60) Jane Espenson: (10/40) David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz: (10/50) Andrew Chambliss: (14/50) Dana Horgan: (6/30) Kalinda Vazquez: (14/40) Scott Nimerfro: (6/30)

Tags: ouat, once upon a time, watching fairytales, ouat episode code, ouat rewatch, jenna watches ouat, ships mentioned, triggers mentioned

*Links to the rest of my rewatch will no longer be provided. They take posts with links outside of searches and I spend way too much time on these reviews to not give them that kind of exposure. Sorry for the inconvenience, but they still can be found on my page under Operation Rewatch.

[sireneia-a]

Operating under the headcanon that Fates is actually just a myth / fairy tale in Fire Emblem canon, I was thinking I'd like to make a post where I choose what "character" each of my main muses have or have had as their favorite growing up! I'm also adding Clive to this list cause for the former I already had his fully written out before I removed him from my roster LOL 

I'll be following Bruno Bettelheim's model of children taking to certain characters in fairy tales because they are an externalization of whatever existential predicament they are going through at the time. I'm aware Bettelheim was a problematic man, yes, but I think his theory on developmental psychology in relation to fairy tales is really interesting ( assuming it’s his to begin with ) and I've been working to apply it to other media besides fairy tales anyway, so might as well combine my schoolwork with what I love.

As a result, I'll be using his theory as a guide for this post. All explanations and match-ups under the cut! As fun as it would be to also think up what version of the tale, ( Birthright vs Conquest vs Revelation, Second Gen included vs not, Heirs of Fate also known or not ) I'm just working with the idea that all of my muses know any and all content.

KLIFF - His favorite would've been Hayato! Kliff in general would've connected more strongly to a mage due to his grandmother being a powerful mage herself, sparking his own interest in magic, but he also would have identified with his plight of being embarrassed by his own habits and insecurities. They're not the same as Kliff's own, but he still relates to him.

CLIVE - Clive's favorite as a child versus his favorite nowadays is very different mostly because he underwent different struggles when he was younger. Whilst when he's older he finds himself fond of Xander and Corrin due to struggles of following one's heart versus doing what's best for one's countrymen, as a youth he would've been very partial to Laslow. Laslow, for him, represents a man with ties to military service yet a free heart that longs to partake in life's simpler pleasures such as asking women out for tea and dancing. Clive was a lot less stressed as a youth, merely being a noble's son who wanted to spend his days lounging about with his friends and later on gossiping about their taste in women and heroes.

TATIANA - Her favorite has always been Caeldori! At first it was because she admired Caeldori for being so put together and wishing to do so much tireless work for the army, being an absolute paragon that Tatiana herself wished she could be in order to repay the church for taking her in when she was younger. Tatiana looked to Caeldori to help her get through and come to terms with her own clumsiness and shortcomings so long as she put in the effort. As she grew older though, she revisits the tale and finds herself relating hardcore to Caeldori’s sighs of romantic love.

DEW - Dew’s favorite is very vocally Shiro. He probably gets pretty upset if you’re only familiar with a version of the tale that doesn’t include the children units. Dew particularly finds himself fond of Shiro because of how Shiro operates: he does what he wants, living freely despite the burden of being a prince and he knows it. It’s a philosophy that Dew understands and it surprised him when he was younger to totally just get a royal even if he’s only fictional. He loves the fact Shiro just kinda wants to stick it to his old man too and just picked up spears to be able to have an edge over him. 

IUCHAR - I feel like this could either be super surprising or not at all, but Iuchar has been partial to Forrest since he was first read Fates alongside his brothers. He tries to be quiet about it nowadays though cause I can totally see someone making fun of him when he was younger proclaiming that he liked Leo’s son. Nowadays, his fake answer is more along the lines of Laslow or Soleil. The truth to his fondness for Forrest is because he feels for his arc of wishing to be accepted. Even if they’re not dealing with the same things exactly, Iuchar most likely held some sort of insecurity when he was younger as not only the middle child but also being constantly on even ground with Iucharba yet not wielding major holy blood. When he got older, his concerns shifted because he was able to use Forrest’s story to cope and eventually move on! He DOES enjoy Forrest’s personality a lot though and probably got his eye for aesthetics after seeing Forrest get so interested in it.

TINE - Tine’s favorite operates based on the idea that she was first read Fates while she’s living under the Frieges and not in Silesse. With that in mind, she’s attached to Azura and even to the present day mid-FE4 keeps going back and back again to reading Fates because she has yet to move on from the existential dilemma she’s living with. She finds comfort in knowing Azura was moved from her home to another family as a young child and feeling trapped and cursed. She especially feels for Azura in Conquest when she’s placed under such heavy suspicion by the Hoshidan family, drawing parallels between Azura’s story and her own with Hilda. 

LENE - Lene since the dawn of time has been a Hinoka stan I’ll be real. Much like Tine, she hasn’t solved her existential predicament but she doesn’t revisit the tale nearly as often as Tine does. She admires and feels for Hinoka with how they both are yearning to search for someone, specifically a family member, and they just can’t give up on it, choosing their pathways in life to be a means to an end in finally finding them. 

COIRPRE - Coirpre, when he was extremely young, identified with Corrin. I headcanon that when he was very young, the mercenaries of Thracia would often poke fun and point out Hannibal’s bachelor life with statements like “Where’s the wifey?” or otherwise making it apparent that Coirpre is missing a mother. Coirpre finds solace in Corrin’s arc because Corrin deals with strange family dynamics and being adopted into the Nohrian family, something much like himself even if Corrin’s family is much, much bigger than his own. He ends up coming to terms with this predicament very quickly though, moving on from Fates to a different story soon after since he had decided he was okay with not having a mother because he loved being Hannibal’s son and also spending time with the Thracian royal family. He closes the book, merely only commenting on it afterwards saying that he thinks Corrin ought to align themself with Nohr and not Hoshido and he doesn’t understand why they would choose anything besides the Conquest route. Later on in life during FE4 though, he finds himself returning to it again and reliving his attachment to Corrin once more because of Lewyn revealing to him his true parentage: something he didn’t want to know and now that he does, it rocks his core ESPECIALLY if it means he has a duke or a prince for a father. He would find Corrin’s tale that much more necessary to cope with his dilemma, finally understanding the crisis between choosing one’s birthright versus the family they were raised with as he struggles to choose whether to return to Thracia after the war or to take up his late father’s lands and abandon the happy life he once knew.

LEIF - Leif is firmly Team Takumi and you can’t convince him otherwise. He especially feels for him in Conquest and will rant about how Takumi deserved better for days on end if you let him. I can totally see both him and Ares sharing a favorite in Takumi and them being able to potentially bond over that actually. Regardless, he has always been frustrated over his situation with his home life being destroyed and would totally latch onto how when Mikoto dies, Takumi blames Corrin for it. Leif would also as a child blindly see Corrin in the wrong and always side with Takumi. He understands Takumi’s anguish over his mother dying. At the same time though, as he gets older, Leif does learn to identify with Corrin considering Corrin’s situation as a fugitive but he feels weird because it’s not as if he thinks Takumi is any less valid. 

LIFIS - Lifis is one of the more fun ones to come up with for this post haha! Anyhow, Lifi’s fav as a child is Nyx and he honestly still probably is attached to her story mid-FE5 since I don’t think he got past the issues he held onto which made him like her in the first place. He finds her maturity really cool and feels for her since she gets asked intrusive questions a lot too. He ends up misinterpreting her situation as a form of being bullied and connects with her as a result; he ultimately sees her as how he wishes he handled situations, respecting and admiring her a lot. 

MARK - This is solely from the perspective of Mark as a young child in Bern because at this point he’s come to terms with the fact that he’s a tactician and tries to make use of his gift, making him parallel with his favorite’s canon ending actually. Regardless, under the headcanon that Mark at first tried to follow his parents’ footsteps as wyvern riders and being active in the military, he relates to Felicia. He sees her getting praised at something she didn’t aim to be ( being heralded as a good military commander and combatant and not the maid she wants to be ) and gains a feeling of solidarity out of it even if their positions are mostly reversed: he used to wish to be better as a soldier but instead turns out to be better at something off the battlefield. 

KENT - bfbfbhfhfhfh I’m so sorry Kent you’re getting one of the more boring answers I’ve written especially since you’ve been on this blog so long..... But I’d say his favorite is Saizo! Partly because Saizo is a Cain and Abel archetype just like himself so that’s neato, but he chooses to latch onto Saizo moreso because ever since he was young, he has always striven to one day become a knight for Caelin and he’d use Saizo as a model of what an “ideal retainer” is. If we operate under the headcanon that him and Sain are childhood friends, he probably also empathized with Saizo more because both of them are associated with green guys who keep getting distracted by women even if for completely different reasons.

ELIWOOD - gREAT QUESTION... i’ll be real i forgot eliwood on this list at first, Regardless, it’s difficult to think of because I haven’t really thought of nor used Eliwood enough to warrant many headcanons ( mostly because there’s plenty of other Eliwood rpers who I love to read and the FE7 community isn’t that big, so I don’t really get the chance to throw him out that much ) and canon doesn’t really give me a hell of a lot for his young childhood except that he hung out a lot with Hector and well, I didn’t really develop any ideas on what his youth was like besides that. We definitely get to know his existential predicament in his late teens considering that’s when FE7 starts up, but until then it’s a blank. Even then, I don’t really know if there’s really a character in Fates that captures the feeling of “wants to believe in their father no matter what even if he’s shifty???” Like unless you want to argue Corrin in Conquest? And the children units don’t really explore that, either being like they just like their dads or they dislike their dads. Honestly, just based on hunches, I could see him really liking Shigure or Hisame though. At the same time though, I could see him relating him and Hector to Siegbert and Shiro respectively in terms of their friendly sparring matches.

STAHL - Well, this one isn’t particularly deep or anything either, but I’m pretty sure Stahl would be a fan of Silas. He views Silas as a nice guy with simple dreams and can’t fault him for that. He does see Silas for a deeper character and honestly analyzes the other characters in Fates for that, but he doesn’t really connect to any of them. He didn’t spend a lot of time with Fates as a story truth be told. He does at least feel the whole “passing up on a former love” arc though when gets a little older.

MARIBELLE - Though part of me was wanting to say Hana due to the fact that Maribelle would be able to relate to the whole devotion to her best friend and totally agrees with Hana on her strong conviction to aim to be a samurai despite others looking down upon her, I think that if Maribelle gets exposed to Fates before she ever meets Lissa, she’d truthfully identify much more with Rhajat. Maribelle was picked on and treated as an utter outcast by all the other noble children, and she’d find comfort in how Rhajat seems to be seen weirdly upon others and gets scolded for scaring them even if Rhajat at times doesn’t actually intend to. Nowadays she totally says her favorite character is Hana though, but she’s grateful to how much Rhajat helped her through the rough patch in her early life. Bonus in that she sees Tharja and gawks a little at first, finding her so similar to the character from the fairy tale she enjoyed so much as a little girl.

BERKUT - Berkut’s choice in favorite isn’t particularly deep, mostly brought about by his own restrictions. He probably would only let himself relate specifically to royal characters with how his mother encouraged him to act like the heir to the throne that he was and to elevate himself, so he wouldn’t let himself relate to anything less. He then ends up picking Siegbert as his favorite character because it’s like Berkut pointing at him and thinking: He’s an awkward prince!!! Same!!! cause i 100% totally see Berkut being fairly socially awkward especially in childhood. He admired Siegbert’s dedication to his father and trying to become a good ruler, uses him as an example before he ends up moving on from the story and at this point probably just looks at Siegbert and thinks of him as “too soft” or something like that.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Why Restaurant Owners Are Afraid to Use the Stimulus Money

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs who got coveted loans explain why they are sitting on them

Throughout the month of April, much of the conversation around the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s stimulus for small businesses, revolved around who received and didn’t receive the loans. But now that small businesses are getting through, can they even use this money?

This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs Naomi Pomeroy in Portland, OR and David Tobias in New York City explain that the restrictions of the loans don’t really fit the needs of the industry and the guidance around their use and forgiveness are too vague.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts. Read the full transcript of our coversation below:

Naomi Pomeroy, owner of Beast and Expatriate in Portland, OR:

Amanda Kludt:

For those who aren’t familiar, can you explain, tell us about your restaurant group, your collection of businesses?

Naomi Pomeroy:

Yeah. I have a small restaurant in Northeast Portland called Beast, and it’s a 26 seat fine dining restaurant with two big long tables and an open kitchen, and we do a six course tasting menu. Menu changes every two weeks, or did anyway. And then Expatriate is my cocktail bar that I own with my husband and it’s right across the street from Beast and it’s, like, 35 seats and has food and nice cocktails.

AK:

And are they in business to any degree at this point?

NP:

No. Our last day of service was March 15th and we’ve been closed since then. Everybody filed for unemployment on the 16th and we don’t know when we’re going to reopen and we haven’t done any kind of take-out or delivery or anything like that.

Daniel Geneen:

Would you mind just saying how many employees you have and what kind of loan you guys requested?

NP:

Oh yeah. So everybody that applies for the PPP has to do their calculations in the same way. So it’s two and a half times your average monthly payroll for your establishment. One is Beast, we had 15 employees and the other was Expatriate, that also had 15 employees, so total of 30 employees. I applied separately for the two establishments. At Beast, I think I got $170,000.00, and I think at Expatriate, we got like $80,000.00. Something like that. So now we have this money, but it-

AK:

Can you talk about the process of filing for the loan and how that went for you?

NP:

Yeah. Sure. I think it went the same as it did for anybody else that tried, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners, since there are probably some people in the industry, would be familiar with that, but if not, I’ll tell you that it made the Obamacare website crash of 2008 look like a cake walk. It was definitely difficult to navigate and it actually ... I have a PPP now, which is really awesome, except that it’s also just as equally mysterious as the application process is the how to distribute the funds or how to get in compliance with the regulations around it. But yeah, there was a mad rush. I mean, I’m part of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which we formed March 17th or 18th sort of in quick response on a national level to deal with corona.

Even with all of our members who are running ... Sometimes Kevin Boehm, he’s a restaurateur for the Boka Group in Chicago, he’s been kind of a leading voice in how to deal with the PPP with the application process and then kind of with the guidance, and even he says that it’s just, the guidance changes a little bit every day, and even within his community in Chicago, some attorneys and tax accountants are saying different things, some bankers are having different interpretations. So everything from start to finish on the process has been a literal cluster-you-know-what.

DG:

Oh, we can say it.

NP:

Cluster-fuck! It’s been a total cluster-fuck! Yeah, so anyway, nobody really understands it, and even what’s so funny is that even though I got funded for my PPP at the beginning of this week, I was finally able to talk to my banker and I said, “Well, I just signed some loan documents that I don’t even feel like I really understand how to get forgiveness on.”

Because the forgiveness isn’t up to the government or the SBA, the forgiveness is going to be up to the individual banking institutions on what qualifies for forgiveness or how the SBA guidance is interpreted. So it’s best if you got the PPP to have a good relationship with your banker, which I do, and when I was in touch with my banker she said, “Well, we’re really unclear also as to how forgiveness is going to work, and we recommend that if you got the PPP, you try to hold on to it and not start spending it until hopefully a little more guidance comes out in the next week or so.” And it was just ... Literally got no extra information from her. She said she was confused, so that does not really bode well for the whole situation.

AK:

So even the banks are saying you might be smart to wait to spend the money.

NP:

Yeah. I mean, the advice right now that has been circulating in the IRC and in my community anyway is that if you get funded and you need it to all be forgiven, which I think is the situation that most of us are in, is that we can’t ... Going into an uncertain economic future and restaurants with extra loan obligations sounds like a recipe for disaster. So I think for almost everybody that received a PPP, their goal is to have it 100% forgiven, and because the guidance is still being fine tuned, let’s call it, from the SBA, the recommendation has been to hold onto it for as long as you can.

I can only hold on to it without ... I mean, my eight week clock starts ticking in six days from now. So right now, I’m feet on the ground, doing lots of math calculations, figuring out how many of my employees want to come back. And I mean, I use the word ... I’m doing air quotes right now because what I mean by work is I want to find out how many of my employees are willing to come off unemployment for me to pay them to stay at home.

AK:

Right.

NP:

Which is just so crazy to even say that out loud because it just sounds like such a stupid idea.

AK:

You have no work for those staffers.

NP:

No, and I guess my big generalized fear is that as we’re kind of getting into this moment, we’re starting to talk about opening up restaurants again slowly and with distancing guidelines and hopefully safely, I guess depending on what state you’re in. I’m not sure what Georgia’s doing there, but for those of us who are kind of considering that this could be coming in a few weeks or a month, my fear is that people that get the PPP are going to push into opening up very quickly, force their staffs back to work because they legitimately need to pay their rent and utilities. It’s putting owners in a very tough spot and it’s also putting employees in a very tough spot because in a lot of states, I think it’s actually a federal mandate that if you are offered a job back and you refuse it, you actually lose your unemployment benefits.

AK:

Yeah, and right now I’ve been reading that unemployment is oftentimes better than what they could be getting if they did go back to their jobs, and then if they go back to their job, the restaurant might end up closing ultimately and then they have to scramble to get back on unemployment. Have you been hearing the same?

NP:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that is the crux of it. I mean, my math calculations right now, obviously I would like to make good with my landlord so I have a good relationship going forward, and as a business owner, look, I understand the plight of the landlord also. I don’t have a big company. My landlord owns the building, but she has a mortgage on the building also. So it’s like when I don’t pay my rent, I’m also putting her in a bad position with her bank. So I would like to be able to make good on that relationship, but I don’t want to do so at the expense of my staff, so I am literally looking at, can I hire back most of my staff and pay them more on unemployment and then help facilitate them getting back on unemployment in eight weeks, because I don’t think our restaurant will be open then.

So I think it’s definitely an interesting kind of ... It’s just, it’s a quagmire that we’re in. It’s a real mess and I don’t see the way out.

DG:

In that case, you would be using your PPP to pay your utilities and pay the staff and end up with zero of it.

NP:

Well, yeah. The funny thing is, is that the PPP, I’m just going to go ahead and call it what it is, which is, it is literally a kind of ... It’s a disguised hand-out to restaurant owners that helps the government get their unemployment numbers to look better than they are. I’m sorry to laugh, but I just think about it as, it literally is just us bailing out the unemployment system.

AK:

If you were able to start from scratch and write the bill yourself, how would you, I don’t know, divvy out the money? Would you just give a blank check?

NP:

Well, I mean, look, obviously that’s kind of, maybe that’s asking kind of a bit much. All of our work has to be very bipartisan at this point, especially, you know, Congress is in this period of just duking it out with each other as well, so I think in order to push anything through, it has to sound like something everyone could get behind. So when you talk about getting people off unemployment, you know everybody’s interested in getting people back to work. I don’t think there’s any question about that part of it. I think people want to open back up and they want to get back to work, so I don’t mind that we have to take this money that is only forgivable if we use it in a certain way, that makes sense, I mean, you don’t want people that say, “Oh, my restaurant’s not going to reopen again anyway, so I’m going to take this $150,000.00 and buy a house in Tahiti,” or whatever. Like, yeah, you don’t want that.

DG:

Right.

NP:

So I think what we’re talking about, what makes sense is, if the guidance could be switched to when a restaurant is able to open and has a business to return to, that’s when your clock starts ticking and then you need to use that money for your first few months back in business again.

AK:

Would it also be useful to open up the restrictions so you could use the money to make your restaurant, I don’t know, more amenable to the current climate?

NP:

I mean, it has to be used in the restaurant, that should be real, right? But if what we’re talking about is trying to get the economy back moving again, we’re going to have to open up our restaurants in a way that makes sense with whatever the current climate is going to be, and I think while we don’t know exactly what that current climate’s going to look like, there isn’t a single person out there that’s projecting that it’s going to be any better than 50% capacity. And even if you read a lot of the state guidelines for reopening, I mean, they’re all actually ... Our state and Oregon is going, I’ve heard, to mandate social distancing, six feet between all parties that aren’t related to each other, no private parties larger than 10, and a 50% occupancy rate. So if you’re talking about that, at least in my restaurant, what I need to use the PPP money for is to pay a couple of my staff members to help me brainstorm and revitalize and rebrand my whole thing. I’m sorry, whoever didn’t make it to Beast, hopefully we’ll do something cool like that again, but that babe is not coming back. We can’t do it.

It’s two communal dining tables, there’s a foot and a half between each of the guests and you’re sitting with a bunch of people that you’ve never met before in your life, you don’t know where they’ve been. So the model of Beast is dead and I think I’m okay with that, but I actually need some money to restructure and rebrand and retrain. And even if you’re just talking about the money that has to get spent on making sure that we can safely have diners in our restaurants, like buying PPE for our staff. So far, my state’s not offering any free ... We have to laminate our menus and we have to get all this disinfectant and you have to spray between each customer, and everything’s going to take longer, there’s going to be less people, and I think that really the big thing to think about here is that if we’re talking about operating at 50% capacity, we’re just talking about a whole lot of restaurants who can’t do what they did before and do that. Margins are just too tight.

NP:

So we basically need all that money to be able to use it however we need to create whatever brand new business we need to create to make it through. So we can go back to employing all the people because obviously restaurants do employ a ton of people in this country. I think it’s 11 million in independent restaurants, so it’s pretty important for us to try to figure this out, and it’s good for the economy, so that’s why it becomes this bipartisan issue that we can probably get some work done on because everybody knows that 11 million jobs is worth a lot.

AK:

Do you want to talk a little bit about your work with the IRC and what the next steps are there for you guys? I know you released a big letter this week.

NP:

Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so when the IRC was formed, the CARES Act was basically already on the floor being passed. We wrote a letter to Congress, the IRC did, and we actually are getting a lot of traction right now, which is so cool. The IRC, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, was formed literally on March 17th or whatever and now we have 51 thousand or more than that people participating, so that’s pretty quick.

AK:

Wow.

NP:

And we’re getting some traction on The Hill, which is really cool. We just decided, it’s like a quick phone call that was Tom Colicchio and me and Kwame and a bunch of different chefs of the James Beard Foundation, and it was like, “Oh my God, we have to do something.” And we realized, we can’t just put stuff on our social media and be like, “Hey guys, listen up. We’ve got to save restaurants.” We got funding from James Beard Foundation, American Express, and Chase, and we’re actually working with a lobbying group to push this legislation through and be heard, and it’s working. So we wrote this letter to Congress and we were asked for $120 billion stabilization fund for the restaurant industry that will be focused on smaller, independent restaurants and restaurants with less access to funding, which is just like you would imagine. Anybody that’s running a Mom and Pop place that can’t pay for a high powered attorney and tax accountant to get their PPP applications filled out. I mean, we just want to help people and this would be in the form of grants. And this is the fix that we kind of dreamed about but were too late on in the first round of funding, so this is essentially a carve out for independent restaurants, and people are listening, so I think that’s really, really cool.

And if people that are listening to the show want to be involved, they can go to SaveRestaurants.com, which is our website, and there’s lots of information. They made it so easy. You can go and click through and email your Congresspeople straight from the website and use your voice to add to the coalition because really, I think what’s important is people have to realize that what’s at stake is the entire industry. It’s expected that I think 30% of restaurants or more won’t make it through this. I read different statistics all the time, and I’m not a numbers person, so I’m not sure, but listen, it’s a total shit storm.

AK:

It’s big.

NP:

Yeah. And we don’t want to lose the diversity, right? Because I think about the kinds of restaurants that I like to eat out at, and they aren’t all places that you’ve heard of. I think about the places that I love and care about, and it’s just little noodle shops or taco trucks and whatever, like that. And it’s just like, we’ve got to figure out how to make sure that those people are getting the attention and funding that they need to make it through, and I don’t think that that funding should be limited to having to hire back 100% of your team when you’re going to be 50% as busy. Restaurant margins are already so tight that we can’t afford that, and we need to do everything that we can.

If independent restaurants employ 11 million people and create a trillion, I think ... Not just independent restaurants, but all restaurants in the US I think contribute a trillion dollars to the US economy, then it’s obviously worth spending a little bit of money on. I know that $120 billion doesn’t sound like a little bit, but if you spend $120 billion and your return on that is a trillion, you’re doing pretty well.

AK:

Yeah, I think it works out, and I think we’re at a time when we need to be talking bigger and bigger numbers for these relief packages.

NP:

I hope people understand that the window of time that we have to address this problem is probably four to eight weeks in terms of really saving restaurants, so I hope that if people do care about it, they start to get pretty active now because the later part’s not going to work because restaurants are already saying they’re closing permanently.

DG:

Yeah.

AK:

So thank you for being generous with your time.

NP:

Any time.

AK:

Thank you for all your work on the IRC and good luck with your PPP loan.

NP:

Okay, thanks. Please remind everybody to visit the IRC website and repost our social media stuff and get involved. It’s not very hard and people ... Congress really does need to hear about how much we like our individual restaurants.

David Tobias, owner of The Wooly in New York City

AK:

We wanted you on because you actually got a PPP loan. You own a number of venues in downtown Manhattan in the Woolworth Building. Can you tell us about all your places and how it’s been?

David Tobias:

Yeah. Sure. Yeah, so we started a while ago with a private event business, grew that a bit, then opened a café, bake shop called The Wooly Daily, then after that, opened a restaurant, about a 73 seat formally sat restaurant, a couple years ago. So yeah, it’s been totally crazy, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we’re just trying to figure out next steps right now.

AK:

When the shutdown originally happened, did you shut everything down, did you stay open for delivery and take-outs, did you have to lay off a bunch of your staff?

DT:

Yeah. We laid off a whole bunch of people. We laid off a lot of people, and we shifted all of our business towards delivery, take-out, which was not really a primary focus of our business before. We’re mostly, our bread and butter is private events, big happy hour gatherings, lunch. That alone was a big pivot for us. We did delivery, but that’s not really ... It wasn’t really our focus. So it was a bit of a crash course for us. Thankfully for us, we did have a lot of the channels already set up, so we had our Seamlesses set up, we had our Caviar set up. We had begun the process with Uber Eats, and a lot of people, a lot of restaurants actually at that time didn’t have the tablets. They didn’t have a rep with a lot of these delivery services, so I know of a bunch that had to close temporarily while they figured out how to do that, while those companies, Seamless, Caviar, were incredibly understaffed doing their own lay offs, so you couldn’t get through to people, you couldn’t get tablets. A lot of these companies, while you can load the service up on your own tablet, they require you to start off with their own proprietary setup, so a lot of people didn’t have the channel set up.

So thankfully, despite us not doing a lot of delivery business at first, we already had that setup, so we were able to shift some focus and kind of keep ourselves busy with that while ... And more than anything, it didn’t really generate a lot of revenue, but it at least helped us stay a bit optimistic and kept people busy and kind of dreaming about what the future could be like with delivery and take-out alone.

AK:

And what was the process like applying for and then getting the loan?

DT:

For us, it was fairly seamless. We obviously really care about our staff a lot, so that was our primary focus and we were incredibly aggressive getting everyone as quickly as possible on unemployment that should be on it because obviously right now it’s incredibly favorable. Very quickly after that, we shifted focus to applying for the PPP. Now I don’t want to speak for everyone here that efficiency and focus on that immediately got it for you, but we have a good relationship with our bank, whose our lender, and we have a lot of stuff kind of organized on the back end. So we were just really thorough and really fast and basically applied as soon as humanly possible.

AK:

So one of the issues with the loan is that it’s kind of a ... The clock is ticking. You only have so much time to spend the money, so how are you guys thinking about how you’re spending the money?

DT:

To be honest, we are scared to spend the money. There’s too much unknown I think for anyone to feel incredibly confident spending the money. I think people fall into a few different camps at this point. There are the people who are incredibly optimistic and are just choosing to have faith, “This is a wild time, let’s just take a risk and go ahead.” Because obviously, the golden ticket here is a grant, is having this convert to a grant, so a lot of those details are not known yet. So some people are choosing just to have faith. This is a wild circumstance, everyone will be on small business and business owners’ sides right now and all those details will work in business owners’ favor. So there are those people.

There are people in the middle who are cautiously optimistic, and then there’s other people who got the money and are just sitting on it and are very realistically thinking about giving it back. Kind of keeping it there as an insurance policy, but hoping they don’t need to spend it, and if they do, at the time that they do, there’ll be more details. We’re kind of in that camp right now.

AK:

If it does go back into a loan and not a grant, from the restaurateur’s point of view, is this a good loan?

DT:

It’s a loan that restaurants can’t get typically. The restaurant industry, I’m sure you know, it’s notoriously difficult to get loans from financial institutions that look like this. Absolutely. However, it’s not really a typical loan also because the government does have rules with how you can even spend the loan money. So you can’t just spend the money on building dividers. You’re going to have the most incredible divider system.

AK:

Okay. So this can’t be a roundabout way of you getting a 1% loan?

DT:

Everyone’s fear is that, and that’s why there’s a lot of hesitation with using it right now.

DG:

How do you feel about telling other people that you’ve received the loan? It’s such a fucked situation that you should feel embarrassed or you’ve seen all these larger restaurant groups get attacked for applying and then receiving the money, but how do you feel, especially interfacing with smaller restaurants or people that have applied and not gotten it?

DT:

I have not felt ... I have felt like its been motivating to more people that I’ve been speaking to, that they should ... That it’s possible that ... Because a lot of people don’t know anyone who got it.

DG:

Interesting.

DT:

So the fact that it’s possible I think is motivating-

DG:

Or someone who got, like, 10% of it.

DT:

Exactly. I think that is a motivating factor for most of the people I speak to, where they’re like, “Oh, whoa.” They kind of perk up a little bit and they’re like, “Oh, interesting. Okay. I’m listening. Okay, maybe I should be a little bit more optimistic about this second phase of PPP that they’re talking about.” The fact that it’s a reality for a small business, a really small business like ours, I think can be motivating for sure, but I think there are bigger issues with the program that I think no matter what, it’s like, we’re kind of a bit of an outlier case and there are other issues with the PPP that still can distract and worry people for sure.

DG:

Right.

DT:

But similar to the unemployment situation that people had, it was a nightmare applying for it, the system was down, in New York at least, the website wasn’t working, people weren’t even sure if unemployment was going to happen, if they were going to get any type of subsidies, and the fact that you started to hear little stories trickle in about people actually getting it, it gave you a bit of hope that it would actually happen.

DG:

Yeah.

AK:

So I know despite all this, you are relatively optimistic about the future. So what do you see for this business, especially for someone who makes a lot of money on events? And that is one sector of hospitality that I think is very much in trouble. What do you see as a future?

DT:

I am optimistic because I have no choice right now, so really, no one has a choice. You either give up, close up shop, have other things in your life that you’ve had kind of gestating and bubbling that you put your energy into, or you try to work with what you’ve got, and that’s what we’re doing right now, no matter how vague it is. There are things that are already unprecedented, like the fact that we are getting a loan like this, that’s unprecedented and it’s unique, so these are the kinds of things that give me hope that there will be more good unprecedented things that happen. In terms of the pivot, while I think the restaurant game is going to change in terms of its physical destination, I think people’s desires for connection and for experiences through food, which is really what our business is based on, I don’t think that’s going to change.

So I think the question is, how can you deliver that to people? There’s just so much virtualization that will satisfy people. There’s just so much receiving ingredients to your kitchen and you creating the experience that people want, so our challenge right now is, how do we create a curated experience for people out of our physical location? And we have a lot of exciting possibilities right now that we’re working on. A lot of it is development. A lot of it has not been putting rubber to the road just yet, but I think the idea is, figure out as many possibilities that you can right now with your current resources, and then as soon as little opportunities happen, you can just flip a switch and you’re good to go.

So we’re going to assume that there’s going to be a need for office catering, controlled environments catering, creating experiences there from a corporate perspective and from people’s own .... Their own personal perspective at home and for events. That’s something that people will want. I mean, even like Passover dinner, people were looking for solutions, full solutions for a Passover dinner.

AK:

So in your point of view, if a restaurateur is saying, “Okay, I’m just going to put my concept on moth balls right now and then reopen when I get the go-ahead and everything’s going to be fine.” That’s a little naïve.

DT:

I don’t know what their unique financial perspective is and situation is. They might have the luxury of being able to do that and risk it and they can just wait and see what happens, and I am sure a lot ... Restaurant owners are pretty diligent in a lot of respects. I think that they know what the situation is going to be like if they can’t open. I, personally, I think that everyone should take this time to really look for innovative pivots that kind of keep the spirit of the restaurant space, events, food and beverage, all this stuff, I think people should look for things that kind of can carry that into a new era.

AK:

I mean, you have a strong lunch business and coffee shop, but a lot of your world surrounds bars and drinking and people being together. What do you see as the future of night life in cities like New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere?

DT:

I think it’s all going to be virtualized and put in Animal Crossing. I think that’s the future of hanging out with each other.

AK:

So sad.

DT:

I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s something that we keep trying to brainstorm around, and every time we do it, it doesn’t end well. I think I heard you say in a previous podcast, AK:, the idea of ... I think it was you. The idea that one of the reasons you go to a bar alone or a restaurant alone is to run into random people and the spontaneity of that and the randomness of that, it’s so special. I don’t know if you guys have found yourselves-

DG:

Sorry, I hate to pause you here, but-

DT:

Oh, that’s right. I remember. You poo-pooed the idea. Okay.

AK:

No, I think what I was saying is when you go out to dine alone, you want the energy.

DT:

Right. You want that energy.

AK:

But Daniel is the one who’s trying to meet people in bars.

DG:

No, no. I’m not taking personally, I’m not taking credit for that. I’m just saying, AK: has never left her house being like, “Man, I hope I rub shoulders with randoms.”

DT:

Fair enough.

AK:

Not usually my goal, but I like the energy.

DT:

We keep trying to figure out, how are we going to create this randomness, this carefree moment where people are connecting that didn’t know each other that get to know each other in new ways and you have that feeling to kind of explore parts of your persona that you don’t typically do during the day or in your day to day life? It’s a challenge. That’s one of the ones that we are kind of putting into a phase four category. We try to think of it as virtualization. We think of different ideas. Is there a virtual bar? A lot of people are doing these virtual bar things, but when you could push ... When you could hang up and you’re at home and you’re in your pajamas and you go to sleep, it just changes the urgency. It’s not throwing you out there and forcing you to deal with a situation, which is kind of part of the allure of going out at night, is sometimes you’re just forcing yourself to go out, and you have the best night of your life.

Is it going to be a speakeasy that you have to go through a full battery of tests right before you go into it? Which is certainly possible. I know that they’re doing things like that, similar, in other countries right now. Is it going to be all private clubs that can ask potentially prying questions about your personal life that you couldn’t do in a public space? Who knows? We’re at the point where every time we have this conversation, it goes so theoretical that it’s fun, but it’s not a great use of our time.

AK:

It makes me so sad.

DT:

For us, it’s a bit of a waiting game for sure and we’re looking for opportunities ... The one thing that we do have is we do have people working for us that can devote creative energy to thinking about this in a real way, which is exciting for us. So that’s one of the things that I’m ... And we have resources to use. It’s easy to come up with concepts in your bedroom, but when you could actually execute and try certain things because you have a commercial kitchen and you have a bunch of back stock of delivery items and ... You have different opportunities to give things a try, so that’s one thing that we’re fortunate with.

DG:

I think it’s super interesting. I think one of the reasons I find it challenging to speculate is I think you often have to dovetail your speculations into two different unique camps of, like, the future will be insanely severe and things will actually return sooner than we expect to a degree of normalcy, right? So it’s like, are we thinking about what happens long term when we have to actually figure out how to have cocktail bars over Zoom or are we thinking about it if we need to reduce our capacity at the bar by 50%? And I think those are just such different worlds. It makes speculation confusing.

DT:

Yeah.

DG:

I find. But I also think, one thing I’m ... I don’t know if I want to say I’m optimistic about, but I think people are more forgiving to swings and misses. If you decided that you guys were going to do some kind of virtual mixology experience where you delivered everyone 10 ingredients and you had them all gather and there was some kind of hunt where they have to figure out how to make the drink and they were all communicating over Zoom and it just fucking sucked, I feel like in normal times, it would be some big article about, “Wow, this big restaurant group had this night of drinking and it was a huge flop.”

I feel like there’s an opportunity for people to have giant whiffs right now, which I actually-

DT:

Totally.

DG:

I actually think, the Zoom hangouts I feel like have kind of faded out a little bit, right? Those live deejay experiences and things that people were doing the first couple weeks, being like, “Yeah, I’m going to this club and this club.” You’re not. I don’t think those things have really clicked. But you keep seeing iterations and I just like ... I appreciate the no man’s land of it and I appreciate that there is no standard.

DT:

I am totally on the same page as you. Bringing us to the restaurant space, the restaurant business before this, as you guys know, incredibly fragile. Everything can fuck you over. I mean, you have a water main break, your business is screwed for the month.

DG:

Right.

DT:

You have a couple really bad reviews where people are oddly passionate to bring your restaurant down because one of your staff was, I don’t know, had a bad day or something like that.

DG:

Right.

DT:

They could destroy your business. A train is down for a month, your bottom line for the year is totally screwed up. If you go into a new fancy establishment and a piece of meat wasn’t cooked perfect, a review is scathing and horrible and it just resonates and it’s online forever. This is a time-

DG:

And the domino effects of it. Yeah.

DT:

Exactly. This is a time where finally I think we’re a bit free of that and people are trying ... People should be trying things, like you said, with this ... The assumption is everyone is going to fail. The assumption is nothing is going to work. So you have the opportunity to try things out. Like you said, I think it’s a really interesting time. I mean, a great example of it, really funny, is The Maple, which everyone ... Maple happened a few years ago. People were so critical of it. They set a really high bar for themselves, but people were so critical of it. People were optimistic, then critical and critiquing little things. “Oh, I saw this,”-

DG:

It was, of course, the flashy, delivery only service that Dave Chang had a stake in.

DT:

Exactly, and now people are like, “This,” and talk about it fondly, and critiques of it back then were like, “I saw the same dinner on there two nights in a row.” What the hell? And now it’s talked about with such incredible fondness, obviously. I mean, it was a really cool idea and really cool service.

DG:

Yeah.

DT:

But there is, this is a time to give things a try because you have people on your side, especially if you’re an independent business. I’m not necessarily sure if the big businesses ... The larger companies are going to get that type of response, but this is the time to give things a try, throw things to the wall. Throw things on the wall, for sure.

DG:

All right. Just to wrap up, weirdest virtual night club idea you guys have had.

DT:

Probably Animal Crossing night club.

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This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs who got coveted loans explain why they are sitting on them

Throughout the month of April, much of the conversation around the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s stimulus for small businesses, revolved around who received and didn’t receive the loans. But now that small businesses are getting through, can they even use this money?

This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs Naomi Pomeroy in Portland, OR and David Tobias in New York City explain that the restrictions of the loans don’t really fit the needs of the industry and the guidance around their use and forgiveness are too vague.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts. Read the full transcript of our coversation below:

Naomi Pomeroy, owner of Beast and Expatriate in Portland, OR:

Amanda Kludt:

For those who aren’t familiar, can you explain, tell us about your restaurant group, your collection of businesses?

Naomi Pomeroy:

Yeah. I have a small restaurant in Northeast Portland called Beast, and it’s a 26 seat fine dining restaurant with two big long tables and an open kitchen, and we do a six course tasting menu. Menu changes every two weeks, or did anyway. And then Expatriate is my cocktail bar that I own with my husband and it’s right across the street from Beast and it’s, like, 35 seats and has food and nice cocktails.

AK:

And are they in business to any degree at this point?

NP:

No. Our last day of service was March 15th and we’ve been closed since then. Everybody filed for unemployment on the 16th and we don’t know when we’re going to reopen and we haven’t done any kind of take-out or delivery or anything like that.

Daniel Geneen:

Would you mind just saying how many employees you have and what kind of loan you guys requested?

NP:

Oh yeah. So everybody that applies for the PPP has to do their calculations in the same way. So it’s two and a half times your average monthly payroll for your establishment. One is Beast, we had 15 employees and the other was Expatriate, that also had 15 employees, so total of 30 employees. I applied separately for the two establishments. At Beast, I think I got $170,000.00, and I think at Expatriate, we got like $80,000.00. Something like that. So now we have this money, but it-

AK:

Can you talk about the process of filing for the loan and how that went for you?

NP:

Yeah. Sure. I think it went the same as it did for anybody else that tried, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners, since there are probably some people in the industry, would be familiar with that, but if not, I’ll tell you that it made the Obamacare website crash of 2008 look like a cake walk. It was definitely difficult to navigate and it actually ... I have a PPP now, which is really awesome, except that it’s also just as equally mysterious as the application process is the how to distribute the funds or how to get in compliance with the regulations around it. But yeah, there was a mad rush. I mean, I’m part of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which we formed March 17th or 18th sort of in quick response on a national level to deal with corona.

Even with all of our members who are running ... Sometimes Kevin Boehm, he’s a restaurateur for the Boka Group in Chicago, he’s been kind of a leading voice in how to deal with the PPP with the application process and then kind of with the guidance, and even he says that it’s just, the guidance changes a little bit every day, and even within his community in Chicago, some attorneys and tax accountants are saying different things, some bankers are having different interpretations. So everything from start to finish on the process has been a literal cluster-you-know-what.

DG:

Oh, we can say it.

NP:

Cluster-fuck! It’s been a total cluster-fuck! Yeah, so anyway, nobody really understands it, and even what’s so funny is that even though I got funded for my PPP at the beginning of this week, I was finally able to talk to my banker and I said, “Well, I just signed some loan documents that I don’t even feel like I really understand how to get forgiveness on.”

Because the forgiveness isn’t up to the government or the SBA, the forgiveness is going to be up to the individual banking institutions on what qualifies for forgiveness or how the SBA guidance is interpreted. So it’s best if you got the PPP to have a good relationship with your banker, which I do, and when I was in touch with my banker she said, “Well, we’re really unclear also as to how forgiveness is going to work, and we recommend that if you got the PPP, you try to hold on to it and not start spending it until hopefully a little more guidance comes out in the next week or so.” And it was just ... Literally got no extra information from her. She said she was confused, so that does not really bode well for the whole situation.

AK:

So even the banks are saying you might be smart to wait to spend the money.

NP:

Yeah. I mean, the advice right now that has been circulating in the IRC and in my community anyway is that if you get funded and you need it to all be forgiven, which I think is the situation that most of us are in, is that we can’t ... Going into an uncertain economic future and restaurants with extra loan obligations sounds like a recipe for disaster. So I think for almost everybody that received a PPP, their goal is to have it 100% forgiven, and because the guidance is still being fine tuned, let’s call it, from the SBA, the recommendation has been to hold onto it for as long as you can.

I can only hold on to it without ... I mean, my eight week clock starts ticking in six days from now. So right now, I’m feet on the ground, doing lots of math calculations, figuring out how many of my employees want to come back. And I mean, I use the word ... I’m doing air quotes right now because what I mean by work is I want to find out how many of my employees are willing to come off unemployment for me to pay them to stay at home.

AK:

Right.

NP:

Which is just so crazy to even say that out loud because it just sounds like such a stupid idea.

AK:

You have no work for those staffers.

NP:

No, and I guess my big generalized fear is that as we’re kind of getting into this moment, we’re starting to talk about opening up restaurants again slowly and with distancing guidelines and hopefully safely, I guess depending on what state you’re in. I’m not sure what Georgia’s doing there, but for those of us who are kind of considering that this could be coming in a few weeks or a month, my fear is that people that get the PPP are going to push into opening up very quickly, force their staffs back to work because they legitimately need to pay their rent and utilities. It’s putting owners in a very tough spot and it’s also putting employees in a very tough spot because in a lot of states, I think it’s actually a federal mandate that if you are offered a job back and you refuse it, you actually lose your unemployment benefits.

AK:

Yeah, and right now I’ve been reading that unemployment is oftentimes better than what they could be getting if they did go back to their jobs, and then if they go back to their job, the restaurant might end up closing ultimately and then they have to scramble to get back on unemployment. Have you been hearing the same?

NP:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that is the crux of it. I mean, my math calculations right now, obviously I would like to make good with my landlord so I have a good relationship going forward, and as a business owner, look, I understand the plight of the landlord also. I don’t have a big company. My landlord owns the building, but she has a mortgage on the building also. So it’s like when I don’t pay my rent, I’m also putting her in a bad position with her bank. So I would like to be able to make good on that relationship, but I don’t want to do so at the expense of my staff, so I am literally looking at, can I hire back most of my staff and pay them more on unemployment and then help facilitate them getting back on unemployment in eight weeks, because I don’t think our restaurant will be open then.

So I think it’s definitely an interesting kind of ... It’s just, it’s a quagmire that we’re in. It’s a real mess and I don’t see the way out.

DG:

In that case, you would be using your PPP to pay your utilities and pay the staff and end up with zero of it.

NP:

Well, yeah. The funny thing is, is that the PPP, I’m just going to go ahead and call it what it is, which is, it is literally a kind of ... It’s a disguised hand-out to restaurant owners that helps the government get their unemployment numbers to look better than they are. I’m sorry to laugh, but I just think about it as, it literally is just us bailing out the unemployment system.

AK:

If you were able to start from scratch and write the bill yourself, how would you, I don’t know, divvy out the money? Would you just give a blank check?

NP:

Well, I mean, look, obviously that’s kind of, maybe that’s asking kind of a bit much. All of our work has to be very bipartisan at this point, especially, you know, Congress is in this period of just duking it out with each other as well, so I think in order to push anything through, it has to sound like something everyone could get behind. So when you talk about getting people off unemployment, you know everybody’s interested in getting people back to work. I don’t think there’s any question about that part of it. I think people want to open back up and they want to get back to work, so I don’t mind that we have to take this money that is only forgivable if we use it in a certain way, that makes sense, I mean, you don’t want people that say, “Oh, my restaurant’s not going to reopen again anyway, so I’m going to take this $150,000.00 and buy a house in Tahiti,” or whatever. Like, yeah, you don’t want that.

DG:

Right.

NP:

So I think what we’re talking about, what makes sense is, if the guidance could be switched to when a restaurant is able to open and has a business to return to, that’s when your clock starts ticking and then you need to use that money for your first few months back in business again.

AK:

Would it also be useful to open up the restrictions so you could use the money to make your restaurant, I don’t know, more amenable to the current climate?

NP:

I mean, it has to be used in the restaurant, that should be real, right? But if what we’re talking about is trying to get the economy back moving again, we’re going to have to open up our restaurants in a way that makes sense with whatever the current climate is going to be, and I think while we don’t know exactly what that current climate’s going to look like, there isn’t a single person out there that’s projecting that it’s going to be any better than 50% capacity. And even if you read a lot of the state guidelines for reopening, I mean, they’re all actually ... Our state and Oregon is going, I’ve heard, to mandate social distancing, six feet between all parties that aren’t related to each other, no private parties larger than 10, and a 50% occupancy rate. So if you’re talking about that, at least in my restaurant, what I need to use the PPP money for is to pay a couple of my staff members to help me brainstorm and revitalize and rebrand my whole thing. I’m sorry, whoever didn’t make it to Beast, hopefully we’ll do something cool like that again, but that babe is not coming back. We can’t do it.

It’s two communal dining tables, there’s a foot and a half between each of the guests and you’re sitting with a bunch of people that you’ve never met before in your life, you don’t know where they’ve been. So the model of Beast is dead and I think I’m okay with that, but I actually need some money to restructure and rebrand and retrain. And even if you’re just talking about the money that has to get spent on making sure that we can safely have diners in our restaurants, like buying PPE for our staff. So far, my state’s not offering any free ... We have to laminate our menus and we have to get all this disinfectant and you have to spray between each customer, and everything’s going to take longer, there’s going to be less people, and I think that really the big thing to think about here is that if we’re talking about operating at 50% capacity, we’re just talking about a whole lot of restaurants who can’t do what they did before and do that. Margins are just too tight.

NP:

So we basically need all that money to be able to use it however we need to create whatever brand new business we need to create to make it through. So we can go back to employing all the people because obviously restaurants do employ a ton of people in this country. I think it’s 11 million in independent restaurants, so it’s pretty important for us to try to figure this out, and it’s good for the economy, so that’s why it becomes this bipartisan issue that we can probably get some work done on because everybody knows that 11 million jobs is worth a lot.

AK:

Do you want to talk a little bit about your work with the IRC and what the next steps are there for you guys? I know you released a big letter this week.

NP:

Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so when the IRC was formed, the CARES Act was basically already on the floor being passed. We wrote a letter to Congress, the IRC did, and we actually are getting a lot of traction right now, which is so cool. The IRC, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, was formed literally on March 17th or whatever and now we have 51 thousand or more than that people participating, so that’s pretty quick.

AK:

Wow.

NP:

And we’re getting some traction on The Hill, which is really cool. We just decided, it’s like a quick phone call that was Tom Colicchio and me and Kwame and a bunch of different chefs of the James Beard Foundation, and it was like, “Oh my God, we have to do something.” And we realized, we can’t just put stuff on our social media and be like, “Hey guys, listen up. We’ve got to save restaurants.” We got funding from James Beard Foundation, American Express, and Chase, and we’re actually working with a lobbying group to push this legislation through and be heard, and it’s working. So we wrote this letter to Congress and we were asked for $120 billion stabilization fund for the restaurant industry that will be focused on smaller, independent restaurants and restaurants with less access to funding, which is just like you would imagine. Anybody that’s running a Mom and Pop place that can’t pay for a high powered attorney and tax accountant to get their PPP applications filled out. I mean, we just want to help people and this would be in the form of grants. And this is the fix that we kind of dreamed about but were too late on in the first round of funding, so this is essentially a carve out for independent restaurants, and people are listening, so I think that’s really, really cool.

And if people that are listening to the show want to be involved, they can go to SaveRestaurants.com, which is our website, and there’s lots of information. They made it so easy. You can go and click through and email your Congresspeople straight from the website and use your voice to add to the coalition because really, I think what’s important is people have to realize that what’s at stake is the entire industry. It’s expected that I think 30% of restaurants or more won’t make it through this. I read different statistics all the time, and I’m not a numbers person, so I’m not sure, but listen, it’s a total shit storm.

AK:

It’s big.

NP:

Yeah. And we don’t want to lose the diversity, right? Because I think about the kinds of restaurants that I like to eat out at, and they aren’t all places that you’ve heard of. I think about the places that I love and care about, and it’s just little noodle shops or taco trucks and whatever, like that. And it’s just like, we’ve got to figure out how to make sure that those people are getting the attention and funding that they need to make it through, and I don’t think that that funding should be limited to having to hire back 100% of your team when you’re going to be 50% as busy. Restaurant margins are already so tight that we can’t afford that, and we need to do everything that we can.

If independent restaurants employ 11 million people and create a trillion, I think ... Not just independent restaurants, but all restaurants in the US I think contribute a trillion dollars to the US economy, then it’s obviously worth spending a little bit of money on. I know that $120 billion doesn’t sound like a little bit, but if you spend $120 billion and your return on that is a trillion, you’re doing pretty well.

AK:

Yeah, I think it works out, and I think we’re at a time when we need to be talking bigger and bigger numbers for these relief packages.

NP:

I hope people understand that the window of time that we have to address this problem is probably four to eight weeks in terms of really saving restaurants, so I hope that if people do care about it, they start to get pretty active now because the later part’s not going to work because restaurants are already saying they’re closing permanently.

DG:

Yeah.

AK:

So thank you for being generous with your time.

NP:

Any time.

AK:

Thank you for all your work on the IRC and good luck with your PPP loan.

NP:

Okay, thanks. Please remind everybody to visit the IRC website and repost our social media stuff and get involved. It’s not very hard and people ... Congress really does need to hear about how much we like our individual restaurants.

David Tobias, owner of The Wooly in New York City

AK:

We wanted you on because you actually got a PPP loan. You own a number of venues in downtown Manhattan in the Woolworth Building. Can you tell us about all your places and how it’s been?

David Tobias:

Yeah. Sure. Yeah, so we started a while ago with a private event business, grew that a bit, then opened a café, bake shop called The Wooly Daily, then after that, opened a restaurant, about a 73 seat formally sat restaurant, a couple years ago. So yeah, it’s been totally crazy, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we’re just trying to figure out next steps right now.

AK:

When the shutdown originally happened, did you shut everything down, did you stay open for delivery and take-outs, did you have to lay off a bunch of your staff?

DT:

Yeah. We laid off a whole bunch of people. We laid off a lot of people, and we shifted all of our business towards delivery, take-out, which was not really a primary focus of our business before. We’re mostly, our bread and butter is private events, big happy hour gatherings, lunch. That alone was a big pivot for us. We did delivery, but that’s not really ... It wasn’t really our focus. So it was a bit of a crash course for us. Thankfully for us, we did have a lot of the channels already set up, so we had our Seamlesses set up, we had our Caviar set up. We had begun the process with Uber Eats, and a lot of people, a lot of restaurants actually at that time didn’t have the tablets. They didn’t have a rep with a lot of these delivery services, so I know of a bunch that had to close temporarily while they figured out how to do that, while those companies, Seamless, Caviar, were incredibly understaffed doing their own lay offs, so you couldn’t get through to people, you couldn’t get tablets. A lot of these companies, while you can load the service up on your own tablet, they require you to start off with their own proprietary setup, so a lot of people didn’t have the channel set up.

So thankfully, despite us not doing a lot of delivery business at first, we already had that setup, so we were able to shift some focus and kind of keep ourselves busy with that while ... And more than anything, it didn’t really generate a lot of revenue, but it at least helped us stay a bit optimistic and kept people busy and kind of dreaming about what the future could be like with delivery and take-out alone.

AK:

And what was the process like applying for and then getting the loan?

DT:

For us, it was fairly seamless. We obviously really care about our staff a lot, so that was our primary focus and we were incredibly aggressive getting everyone as quickly as possible on unemployment that should be on it because obviously right now it’s incredibly favorable. Very quickly after that, we shifted focus to applying for the PPP. Now I don’t want to speak for everyone here that efficiency and focus on that immediately got it for you, but we have a good relationship with our bank, whose our lender, and we have a lot of stuff kind of organized on the back end. So we were just really thorough and really fast and basically applied as soon as humanly possible.

AK:

So one of the issues with the loan is that it’s kind of a ... The clock is ticking. You only have so much time to spend the money, so how are you guys thinking about how you’re spending the money?

DT:

To be honest, we are scared to spend the money. There’s too much unknown I think for anyone to feel incredibly confident spending the money. I think people fall into a few different camps at this point. There are the people who are incredibly optimistic and are just choosing to have faith, “This is a wild time, let’s just take a risk and go ahead.” Because obviously, the golden ticket here is a grant, is having this convert to a grant, so a lot of those details are not known yet. So some people are choosing just to have faith. This is a wild circumstance, everyone will be on small business and business owners’ sides right now and all those details will work in business owners’ favor. So there are those people.

There are people in the middle who are cautiously optimistic, and then there’s other people who got the money and are just sitting on it and are very realistically thinking about giving it back. Kind of keeping it there as an insurance policy, but hoping they don’t need to spend it, and if they do, at the time that they do, there’ll be more details. We’re kind of in that camp right now.

AK:

If it does go back into a loan and not a grant, from the restaurateur’s point of view, is this a good loan?

DT:

It’s a loan that restaurants can’t get typically. The restaurant industry, I’m sure you know, it’s notoriously difficult to get loans from financial institutions that look like this. Absolutely. However, it’s not really a typical loan also because the government does have rules with how you can even spend the loan money. So you can’t just spend the money on building dividers. You’re going to have the most incredible divider system.

AK:

Okay. So this can’t be a roundabout way of you getting a 1% loan?

DT:

Everyone’s fear is that, and that’s why there’s a lot of hesitation with using it right now.

DG:

How do you feel about telling other people that you’ve received the loan? It’s such a fucked situation that you should feel embarrassed or you’ve seen all these larger restaurant groups get attacked for applying and then receiving the money, but how do you feel, especially interfacing with smaller restaurants or people that have applied and not gotten it?

DT:

I have not felt ... I have felt like its been motivating to more people that I’ve been speaking to, that they should ... That it’s possible that ... Because a lot of people don’t know anyone who got it.

DG:

Interesting.

DT:

So the fact that it’s possible I think is motivating-

DG:

Or someone who got, like, 10% of it.

DT:

Exactly. I think that is a motivating factor for most of the people I speak to, where they’re like, “Oh, whoa.” They kind of perk up a little bit and they’re like, “Oh, interesting. Okay. I’m listening. Okay, maybe I should be a little bit more optimistic about this second phase of PPP that they’re talking about.” The fact that it’s a reality for a small business, a really small business like ours, I think can be motivating for sure, but I think there are bigger issues with the program that I think no matter what, it’s like, we’re kind of a bit of an outlier case and there are other issues with the PPP that still can distract and worry people for sure.

DG:

Right.

DT:

But similar to the unemployment situation that people had, it was a nightmare applying for it, the system was down, in New York at least, the website wasn’t working, people weren’t even sure if unemployment was going to happen, if they were going to get any type of subsidies, and the fact that you started to hear little stories trickle in about people actually getting it, it gave you a bit of hope that it would actually happen.

DG:

Yeah.

AK:

So I know despite all this, you are relatively optimistic about the future. So what do you see for this business, especially for someone who makes a lot of money on events? And that is one sector of hospitality that I think is very much in trouble. What do you see as a future?

DT:

I am optimistic because I have no choice right now, so really, no one has a choice. You either give up, close up shop, have other things in your life that you’ve had kind of gestating and bubbling that you put your energy into, or you try to work with what you’ve got, and that’s what we’re doing right now, no matter how vague it is. There are things that are already unprecedented, like the fact that we are getting a loan like this, that’s unprecedented and it’s unique, so these are the kinds of things that give me hope that there will be more good unprecedented things that happen. In terms of the pivot, while I think the restaurant game is going to change in terms of its physical destination, I think people’s desires for connection and for experiences through food, which is really what our business is based on, I don’t think that’s going to change.

So I think the question is, how can you deliver that to people? There’s just so much virtualization that will satisfy people. There’s just so much receiving ingredients to your kitchen and you creating the experience that people want, so our challenge right now is, how do we create a curated experience for people out of our physical location? And we have a lot of exciting possibilities right now that we’re working on. A lot of it is development. A lot of it has not been putting rubber to the road just yet, but I think the idea is, figure out as many possibilities that you can right now with your current resources, and then as soon as little opportunities happen, you can just flip a switch and you’re good to go.

So we’re going to assume that there’s going to be a need for office catering, controlled environments catering, creating experiences there from a corporate perspective and from people’s own .... Their own personal perspective at home and for events. That’s something that people will want. I mean, even like Passover dinner, people were looking for solutions, full solutions for a Passover dinner.

AK:

So in your point of view, if a restaurateur is saying, “Okay, I’m just going to put my concept on moth balls right now and then reopen when I get the go-ahead and everything’s going to be fine.” That’s a little naïve.

DT:

I don’t know what their unique financial perspective is and situation is. They might have the luxury of being able to do that and risk it and they can just wait and see what happens, and I am sure a lot ... Restaurant owners are pretty diligent in a lot of respects. I think that they know what the situation is going to be like if they can’t open. I, personally, I think that everyone should take this time to really look for innovative pivots that kind of keep the spirit of the restaurant space, events, food and beverage, all this stuff, I think people should look for things that kind of can carry that into a new era.

AK:

I mean, you have a strong lunch business and coffee shop, but a lot of your world surrounds bars and drinking and people being together. What do you see as the future of night life in cities like New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere?

DT:

I think it’s all going to be virtualized and put in Animal Crossing. I think that’s the future of hanging out with each other.

AK:

So sad.

DT:

I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s something that we keep trying to brainstorm around, and every time we do it, it doesn’t end well. I think I heard you say in a previous podcast, AK:, the idea of ... I think it was you. The idea that one of the reasons you go to a bar alone or a restaurant alone is to run into random people and the spontaneity of that and the randomness of that, it’s so special. I don’t know if you guys have found yourselves-

DG:

Sorry, I hate to pause you here, but-

DT:

Oh, that’s right. I remember. You poo-pooed the idea. Okay.

AK:

No, I think what I was saying is when you go out to dine alone, you want the energy.

DT:

Right. You want that energy.

AK:

But Daniel is the one who’s trying to meet people in bars.

DG:

No, no. I’m not taking personally, I’m not taking credit for that. I’m just saying, AK: has never left her house being like, “Man, I hope I rub shoulders with randoms.”

DT:

Fair enough.

AK:

Not usually my goal, but I like the energy.

DT:

We keep trying to figure out, how are we going to create this randomness, this carefree moment where people are connecting that didn’t know each other that get to know each other in new ways and you have that feeling to kind of explore parts of your persona that you don’t typically do during the day or in your day to day life? It’s a challenge. That’s one of the ones that we are kind of putting into a phase four category. We try to think of it as virtualization. We think of different ideas. Is there a virtual bar? A lot of people are doing these virtual bar things, but when you could push ... When you could hang up and you’re at home and you’re in your pajamas and you go to sleep, it just changes the urgency. It’s not throwing you out there and forcing you to deal with a situation, which is kind of part of the allure of going out at night, is sometimes you’re just forcing yourself to go out, and you have the best night of your life.

Is it going to be a speakeasy that you have to go through a full battery of tests right before you go into it? Which is certainly possible. I know that they’re doing things like that, similar, in other countries right now. Is it going to be all private clubs that can ask potentially prying questions about your personal life that you couldn’t do in a public space? Who knows? We’re at the point where every time we have this conversation, it goes so theoretical that it’s fun, but it’s not a great use of our time.

AK:

It makes me so sad.

DT:

For us, it’s a bit of a waiting game for sure and we’re looking for opportunities ... The one thing that we do have is we do have people working for us that can devote creative energy to thinking about this in a real way, which is exciting for us. So that’s one of the things that I’m ... And we have resources to use. It’s easy to come up with concepts in your bedroom, but when you could actually execute and try certain things because you have a commercial kitchen and you have a bunch of back stock of delivery items and ... You have different opportunities to give things a try, so that’s one thing that we’re fortunate with.

DG:

I think it’s super interesting. I think one of the reasons I find it challenging to speculate is I think you often have to dovetail your speculations into two different unique camps of, like, the future will be insanely severe and things will actually return sooner than we expect to a degree of normalcy, right? So it’s like, are we thinking about what happens long term when we have to actually figure out how to have cocktail bars over Zoom or are we thinking about it if we need to reduce our capacity at the bar by 50%? And I think those are just such different worlds. It makes speculation confusing.

DT:

Yeah.

DG:

I find. But I also think, one thing I’m ... I don’t know if I want to say I’m optimistic about, but I think people are more forgiving to swings and misses. If you decided that you guys were going to do some kind of virtual mixology experience where you delivered everyone 10 ingredients and you had them all gather and there was some kind of hunt where they have to figure out how to make the drink and they were all communicating over Zoom and it just fucking sucked, I feel like in normal times, it would be some big article about, “Wow, this big restaurant group had this night of drinking and it was a huge flop.”

I feel like there’s an opportunity for people to have giant whiffs right now, which I actually-

DT:

Totally.

DG:

I actually think, the Zoom hangouts I feel like have kind of faded out a little bit, right? Those live deejay experiences and things that people were doing the first couple weeks, being like, “Yeah, I’m going to this club and this club.” You’re not. I don’t think those things have really clicked. But you keep seeing iterations and I just like ... I appreciate the no man’s land of it and I appreciate that there is no standard.

DT:

I am totally on the same page as you. Bringing us to the restaurant space, the restaurant business before this, as you guys know, incredibly fragile. Everything can fuck you over. I mean, you have a water main break, your business is screwed for the month.

DG:

Right.

DT:

You have a couple really bad reviews where people are oddly passionate to bring your restaurant down because one of your staff was, I don’t know, had a bad day or something like that.

DG:

Right.

DT:

They could destroy your business. A train is down for a month, your bottom line for the year is totally screwed up. If you go into a new fancy establishment and a piece of meat wasn’t cooked perfect, a review is scathing and horrible and it just resonates and it’s online forever. This is a time-

DG:

And the domino effects of it. Yeah.

DT:

Exactly. This is a time where finally I think we’re a bit free of that and people are trying ... People should be trying things, like you said, with this ... The assumption is everyone is going to fail. The assumption is nothing is going to work. So you have the opportunity to try things out. Like you said, I think it’s a really interesting time. I mean, a great example of it, really funny, is The Maple, which everyone ... Maple happened a few years ago. People were so critical of it. They set a really high bar for themselves, but people were so critical of it. People were optimistic, then critical and critiquing little things. “Oh, I saw this,”-

DG:

It was, of course, the flashy, delivery only service that Dave Chang had a stake in.

DT:

Exactly, and now people are like, “This,” and talk about it fondly, and critiques of it back then were like, “I saw the same dinner on there two nights in a row.” What the hell? And now it’s talked about with such incredible fondness, obviously. I mean, it was a really cool idea and really cool service.

DG:

Yeah.

DT:

But there is, this is a time to give things a try because you have people on your side, especially if you’re an independent business. I’m not necessarily sure if the big businesses ... The larger companies are going to get that type of response, but this is the time to give things a try, throw things to the wall. Throw things on the wall, for sure.

DG:

All right. Just to wrap up, weirdest virtual night club idea you guys have had.

DT:

Probably Animal Crossing night club.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Wr0fr9 via Blogger https://ift.tt/3ddlnIf

[printedword]

Mallory has a history of imposture, and of duping people with false stories about disease and death. Long before he wrote fiction professionally, Mallory was experimenting with gothic personal fictions, apparently designed to get attention, bring him advancement, or to explain away failings. “Money and power were important to him,” a former publishing colleague told me. “But so was drama, and securing people’s sympathies.”

A decade or so ago, Raine read an application from Dan Mallory, which described a proposed thesis on homoeroticism in Patricia Highsmith’s fiction. Unusually, the application included an extended personal statement.

Raine, telling me about the essay during a phone conversation a few months ago, called it an astonishing piece of writing that described almost unbearable family suffering. The essay sought to explain why Mallory’s performance as a master’s student at Oxford, a few years earlier, had been good but not brilliant. Mallory said that his studies had been disrupted by visits to America, to nurse his mother, who had breast cancer. Raine recalled, “He had a brother, who was mentally disadvantaged, and also had cystic fibrosis. The brother died while being nursed by him. And Dan was supporting the family as well. And the mother gradually died.” According to Raine, Mallory had described how his mother rejected the idea of suffering without complaint. Mallory often read aloud to her the passage in “Little Women” in which Beth dies, with meek, tidy stoicism, so that his mother “could sneer at it, basically.”

Raine went on, “At some point, when Dan was nursing her, he got a brain tumor, which he didn’t tell her about, because he thought it would be upsetting to her. And, evidently, that sort of cleared up. And then she died. The brother had already died.”

[...]

I told Raine that Mallory’s mother was not dead. There was a pause, and then he said, “If she’s alive, he lied.” Raine underscored that he had taken Mallory’s essay to be factual. He asked me, “Is the father alive? In the account I read, I’m almost a hundred per cent certain that the father is dead.” The senior John Mallory, once an executive at the Bank of America in Charlotte, also attended the event at Queens University. He and Pamela have been married for more than forty years.

In 1999, at the end of Mallory’s sophomore year in college, he published an article in the Duke Chronicle which purported to describe events that had occurred a few years earlier, when he was seventeen; he wrote that he was then living in a single-parent household. [...] His mother, he wrote, urged him “to write to your colleges and tell them your mother has cancer.” Mallory said that he complied, adding, “I hardly feel I capitalized on tragedy—rather, I merely squeezed lemonade from the proverbial lemons.” In college applications, he noted, “I lamented, in the sweeping, tragic prose of a Brontë sister, the unsettling darkness of the master bedroom, where my mother, reeling from bombardments of chemotherapy, lay for days huddled in a fetal position.”

This strategy apparently failed with Princeton. In the article, Mallory recalled writing to Fred Hargadon, then Princeton’s dean of admissions. “You heartless bastard,” the letter supposedly began. “What kind of latter-day Stalin refuses admission to someone in my plight? Not that I ever seriously considered gracing your godforsaken institution with my presence—you should be so lucky—but I’m nonetheless relieved to know that I won’t be attending a university whose administrators opt to ignore oncological afflictions; perhaps if I’d followed the example of your prized student Lyle Menendez and killed my mother, things would have turned out differently.”

I was recently told about two former publishing colleagues of Mallory’s who called him after he didn’t show up for a meeting. Mallory said that he was at home, taking care of someone’s dog. The meeting continued, as a conference call. Mallory now and then shouted, “No! Get down!” After hanging up, the two colleagues looked at each other. “There’s no dog, right?” “No.”

On February 12, 2013, some people in London who knew Mallory professionally received a group e-mail from Jake Mallory, Dan’s brother, whom they’d never met. Writing from a Gmail address, Jake said that Dan would be going to the hospital the next day, for the removal of a tumor. He’d be having “complicated surgery with several high risk factors, including the possibility of paralysis and/or the loss of function below the waist.” But, Jake went on, “Dan has been through worse and has pointed out that if he could make it through Love Actually alive, this surgery holds no terrors.” Dan would eat “an early dinner of sashimi and will then read a book about dogs until bedtime,” Jake wrote, adding, “Dan was treated terribly by people throughout his childhood and teenage years and into his twenties, which left him a very deeply lonely person, so he does not like/trust many people. Please keep him in your thoughts.”

[...]

On February 14, 2013, a “Jake” message to New York contacts described overnight surgery—uncommon timing for a scheduled procedure—in an unspecified hospital. “My brother’s 7-hour surgery ended early this morning,” the e-mail began. “He experienced significant blood loss—more so than is common during spinal surgeries, so it required two transfusions. However, the tumor appears to have been completely removed. His very first words upon waking up were ‘I need vodka.’ ” I was told that a recipient sent vodka to Dan’s apartment, and was thanked by “Jake,” who reported that his brother roused himself just long enough to say that the sender was a goddess. [...] “Jake” continued, “He has been fitted with a ‘lumbar drain’ in his back to drain his spinal fluid. The pain is apparently quite severe, but he is on medicine.” (A Britishism.) “He is not in great shape but did manage to ask if he could keep the tumor as a pet. He will most likely be going home today.”

[...]

Three days later, “Jake” wrote another group e-mail, saying that “an allergic reaction to a new pain killer” had caused Dan “to go into shock and cardiac arrest.” He went on, “He was taken to the hospital on time and treated immediately and is out of intensive care (still on a respirator and under sedation). While this setback is not welcome it is not permanent either, and at least Dan can now say he has had two lucky escapes in the space of two months.” “Jake” went on, “The worst is past and we are hoping he can go back to his apartment this weekend and then pick up where he left off. This would daunt a mere mortal but not my brother.”

[...]

“Jake” noted that Dan had been “working with abused children and infants at the hospital where he was treated.” The previous week, “Jake” had seen Dan “talking to a little girl whose arm had been broken for her,” he wrote, adding, “My brother’s arm was broken for him when he was a baby.” This phrasing seems to stop just short of alleging parental abuse. (The theme of childhood victimization, sometimes an element of “Jake” e-mails sent to London associates, did not appear in the New York e-mails.) “Jake” went on, “He wrote the little girl a story about a hedgehog in his nicest handwriting to show her how she could rebound from a bad experience. I want for him to do the same, although I understand that he is tired of having to rebound from things.”

[...]

When Mallory returned to work that spring, after several weeks, nothing was said. A former co-worker at Morrow, who admires him and still has only the vaguest sense of a health issue, told me that Mallory “seemed the same as before.” He hadn’t lost any weight or hair.

[instantdeerlover]

Why Restaurant Owners Are Afraid to Use the Stimulus Money added to Google Docs

Why Restaurant Owners Are Afraid to Use the Stimulus Money

 Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs who got coveted loans explain why they are sitting on them

Throughout the month of April, much of the conversation around the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s stimulus for small businesses, revolved around who received and didn’t receive the loans. But now that small businesses are getting through, can they even use this money?

This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs Naomi Pomeroy in Portland, OR and David Tobias in New York City explain that the restrictions of the loans don’t really fit the needs of the industry and the guidance around their use and forgiveness are too vague.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts. Read the full transcript of our coversation below:

Naomi Pomeroy, owner of Beast and Expatriate in Portland, OR:

Amanda Kludt:

For those who aren’t familiar, can you explain, tell us about your restaurant group, your collection of businesses?

Naomi Pomeroy:

Yeah. I have a small restaurant in Northeast Portland called Beast, and it’s a 26 seat fine dining restaurant with two big long tables and an open kitchen, and we do a six course tasting menu. Menu changes every two weeks, or did anyway. And then Expatriate is my cocktail bar that I own with my husband and it’s right across the street from Beast and it’s, like, 35 seats and has food and nice cocktails.

AK:

And are they in business to any degree at this point?

NP:

No. Our last day of service was March 15th and we’ve been closed since then. Everybody filed for unemployment on the 16th and we don’t know when we’re going to reopen and we haven’t done any kind of take-out or delivery or anything like that.

Daniel Geneen:

Would you mind just saying how many employees you have and what kind of loan you guys requested?

NP:

Oh yeah. So everybody that applies for the PPP has to do their calculations in the same way. So it’s two and a half times your average monthly payroll for your establishment. One is Beast, we had 15 employees and the other was Expatriate, that also had 15 employees, so total of 30 employees. I applied separately for the two establishments. At Beast, I think I got $170,000.00, and I think at Expatriate, we got like $80,000.00. Something like that. So now we have this money, but it-

AK:

Can you talk about the process of filing for the loan and how that went for you?

NP:

Yeah. Sure. I think it went the same as it did for anybody else that tried, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners, since there are probably some people in the industry, would be familiar with that, but if not, I’ll tell you that it made the Obamacare website crash of 2008 look like a cake walk. It was definitely difficult to navigate and it actually ... I have a PPP now, which is really awesome, except that it’s also just as equally mysterious as the application process is the how to distribute the funds or how to get in compliance with the regulations around it. But yeah, there was a mad rush. I mean, I’m part of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which we formed March 17th or 18th sort of in quick response on a national level to deal with corona.

Even with all of our members who are running ... Sometimes Kevin Boehm, he’s a restaurateur for the Boka Group in Chicago, he’s been kind of a leading voice in how to deal with the PPP with the application process and then kind of with the guidance, and even he says that it’s just, the guidance changes a little bit every day, and even within his community in Chicago, some attorneys and tax accountants are saying different things, some bankers are having different interpretations. So everything from start to finish on the process has been a literal cluster-you-know-what.

DG:

Oh, we can say it.

NP:

Cluster-fuck! It’s been a total cluster-fuck! Yeah, so anyway, nobody really understands it, and even what’s so funny is that even though I got funded for my PPP at the beginning of this week, I was finally able to talk to my banker and I said, “Well, I just signed some loan documents that I don’t even feel like I really understand how to get forgiveness on.”

Because the forgiveness isn’t up to the government or the SBA, the forgiveness is going to be up to the individual banking institutions on what qualifies for forgiveness or how the SBA guidance is interpreted. So it’s best if you got the PPP to have a good relationship with your banker, which I do, and when I was in touch with my banker she said, “Well, we’re really unclear also as to how forgiveness is going to work, and we recommend that if you got the PPP, you try to hold on to it and not start spending it until hopefully a little more guidance comes out in the next week or so.” And it was just ... Literally got no extra information from her. She said she was confused, so that does not really bode well for the whole situation.

AK:

So even the banks are saying you might be smart to wait to spend the money.

NP:

Yeah. I mean, the advice right now that has been circulating in the IRC and in my community anyway is that if you get funded and you need it to all be forgiven, which I think is the situation that most of us are in, is that we can’t ... Going into an uncertain economic future and restaurants with extra loan obligations sounds like a recipe for disaster. So I think for almost everybody that received a PPP, their goal is to have it 100% forgiven, and because the guidance is still being fine tuned, let’s call it, from the SBA, the recommendation has been to hold onto it for as long as you can.

I can only hold on to it without ... I mean, my eight week clock starts ticking in six days from now. So right now, I’m feet on the ground, doing lots of math calculations, figuring out how many of my employees want to come back. And I mean, I use the word ... I’m doing air quotes right now because what I mean by work is I want to find out how many of my employees are willing to come off unemployment for me to pay them to stay at home.

AK:

Right.

NP:

Which is just so crazy to even say that out loud because it just sounds like such a stupid idea.

AK:

You have no work for those staffers.

NP:

No, and I guess my big generalized fear is that as we’re kind of getting into this moment, we’re starting to talk about opening up restaurants again slowly and with distancing guidelines and hopefully safely, I guess depending on what state you’re in. I’m not sure what Georgia’s doing there, but for those of us who are kind of considering that this could be coming in a few weeks or a month, my fear is that people that get the PPP are going to push into opening up very quickly, force their staffs back to work because they legitimately need to pay their rent and utilities. It’s putting owners in a very tough spot and it’s also putting employees in a very tough spot because in a lot of states, I think it’s actually a federal mandate that if you are offered a job back and you refuse it, you actually lose your unemployment benefits.

AK:

Yeah, and right now I’ve been reading that unemployment is oftentimes better than what they could be getting if they did go back to their jobs, and then if they go back to their job, the restaurant might end up closing ultimately and then they have to scramble to get back on unemployment. Have you been hearing the same?

NP:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that is the crux of it. I mean, my math calculations right now, obviously I would like to make good with my landlord so I have a good relationship going forward, and as a business owner, look, I understand the plight of the landlord also. I don’t have a big company. My landlord owns the building, but she has a mortgage on the building also. So it’s like when I don’t pay my rent, I’m also putting her in a bad position with her bank. So I would like to be able to make good on that relationship, but I don’t want to do so at the expense of my staff, so I am literally looking at, can I hire back most of my staff and pay them more on unemployment and then help facilitate them getting back on unemployment in eight weeks, because I don’t think our restaurant will be open then.

So I think it’s definitely an interesting kind of ... It’s just, it’s a quagmire that we’re in. It’s a real mess and I don’t see the way out.

DG:

In that case, you would be using your PPP to pay your utilities and pay the staff and end up with zero of it.

NP:

Well, yeah. The funny thing is, is that the PPP, I’m just going to go ahead and call it what it is, which is, it is literally a kind of ... It’s a disguised hand-out to restaurant owners that helps the government get their unemployment numbers to look better than they are. I’m sorry to laugh, but I just think about it as, it literally is just us bailing out the unemployment system.

AK:

If you were able to start from scratch and write the bill yourself, how would you, I don’t know, divvy out the money? Would you just give a blank check?

NP:

Well, I mean, look, obviously that’s kind of, maybe that’s asking kind of a bit much. All of our work has to be very bipartisan at this point, especially, you know, Congress is in this period of just duking it out with each other as well, so I think in order to push anything through, it has to sound like something everyone could get behind. So when you talk about getting people off unemployment, you know everybody’s interested in getting people back to work. I don’t think there’s any question about that part of it. I think people want to open back up and they want to get back to work, so I don’t mind that we have to take this money that is only forgivable if we use it in a certain way, that makes sense, I mean, you don’t want people that say, “Oh, my restaurant’s not going to reopen again anyway, so I’m going to take this $150,000.00 and buy a house in Tahiti,” or whatever. Like, yeah, you don’t want that.

DG:

Right.

NP:

So I think what we’re talking about, what makes sense is, if the guidance could be switched to when a restaurant is able to open and has a business to return to, that’s when your clock starts ticking and then you need to use that money for your first few months back in business again.

AK:

Would it also be useful to open up the restrictions so you could use the money to make your restaurant, I don’t know, more amenable to the current climate?

NP:

I mean, it has to be used in the restaurant, that should be real, right? But if what we’re talking about is trying to get the economy back moving again, we’re going to have to open up our restaurants in a way that makes sense with whatever the current climate is going to be, and I think while we don’t know exactly what that current climate’s going to look like, there isn’t a single person out there that’s projecting that it’s going to be any better than 50% capacity. And even if you read a lot of the state guidelines for reopening, I mean, they’re all actually ... Our state and Oregon is going, I’ve heard, to mandate social distancing, six feet between all parties that aren’t related to each other, no private parties larger than 10, and a 50% occupancy rate. So if you’re talking about that, at least in my restaurant, what I need to use the PPP money for is to pay a couple of my staff members to help me brainstorm and revitalize and rebrand my whole thing. I’m sorry, whoever didn’t make it to Beast, hopefully we’ll do something cool like that again, but that babe is not coming back. We can’t do it.

It’s two communal dining tables, there’s a foot and a half between each of the guests and you’re sitting with a bunch of people that you’ve never met before in your life, you don’t know where they’ve been. So the model of Beast is dead and I think I’m okay with that, but I actually need some money to restructure and rebrand and retrain. And even if you’re just talking about the money that has to get spent on making sure that we can safely have diners in our restaurants, like buying PPE for our staff. So far, my state’s not offering any free ... We have to laminate our menus and we have to get all this disinfectant and you have to spray between each customer, and everything’s going to take longer, there’s going to be less people, and I think that really the big thing to think about here is that if we’re talking about operating at 50% capacity, we’re just talking about a whole lot of restaurants who can’t do what they did before and do that. Margins are just too tight.

NP:

So we basically need all that money to be able to use it however we need to create whatever brand new business we need to create to make it through. So we can go back to employing all the people because obviously restaurants do employ a ton of people in this country. I think it’s 11 million in independent restaurants, so it’s pretty important for us to try to figure this out, and it’s good for the economy, so that’s why it becomes this bipartisan issue that we can probably get some work done on because everybody knows that 11 million jobs is worth a lot.

AK:

Do you want to talk a little bit about your work with the IRC and what the next steps are there for you guys? I know you released a big letter this week.

NP:

Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so when the IRC was formed, the CARES Act was basically already on the floor being passed. We wrote a letter to Congress, the IRC did, and we actually are getting a lot of traction right now, which is so cool. The IRC, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, was formed literally on March 17th or whatever and now we have 51 thousand or more than that people participating, so that’s pretty quick.

AK:

Wow.

NP:

And we’re getting some traction on The Hill, which is really cool. We just decided, it’s like a quick phone call that was Tom Colicchio and me and Kwame and a bunch of different chefs of the James Beard Foundation, and it was like, “Oh my God, we have to do something.” And we realized, we can’t just put stuff on our social media and be like, “Hey guys, listen up. We’ve got to save restaurants.” We got funding from James Beard Foundation, American Express, and Chase, and we’re actually working with a lobbying group to push this legislation through and be heard, and it’s working. So we wrote this letter to Congress and we were asked for $120 billion stabilization fund for the restaurant industry that will be focused on smaller, independent restaurants and restaurants with less access to funding, which is just like you would imagine. Anybody that’s running a Mom and Pop place that can’t pay for a high powered attorney and tax accountant to get their PPP applications filled out. I mean, we just want to help people and this would be in the form of grants. And this is the fix that we kind of dreamed about but were too late on in the first round of funding, so this is essentially a carve out for independent restaurants, and people are listening, so I think that’s really, really cool.

And if people that are listening to the show want to be involved, they can go to SaveRestaurants.com, which is our website, and there’s lots of information. They made it so easy. You can go and click through and email your Congresspeople straight from the website and use your voice to add to the coalition because really, I think what’s important is people have to realize that what’s at stake is the entire industry. It’s expected that I think 30% of restaurants or more won’t make it through this. I read different statistics all the time, and I’m not a numbers person, so I’m not sure, but listen, it’s a total shit storm.

AK:

It’s big.

NP:

Yeah. And we don’t want to lose the diversity, right? Because I think about the kinds of restaurants that I like to eat out at, and they aren’t all places that you’ve heard of. I think about the places that I love and care about, and it’s just little noodle shops or taco trucks and whatever, like that. And it’s just like, we’ve got to figure out how to make sure that those people are getting the attention and funding that they need to make it through, and I don’t think that that funding should be limited to having to hire back 100% of your team when you’re going to be 50% as busy. Restaurant margins are already so tight that we can’t afford that, and we need to do everything that we can.

If independent restaurants employ 11 million people and create a trillion, I think ... Not just independent restaurants, but all restaurants in the US I think contribute a trillion dollars to the US economy, then it’s obviously worth spending a little bit of money on. I know that $120 billion doesn’t sound like a little bit, but if you spend $120 billion and your return on that is a trillion, you’re doing pretty well.

AK:

Yeah, I think it works out, and I think we’re at a time when we need to be talking bigger and bigger numbers for these relief packages.

NP:

I hope people understand that the window of time that we have to address this problem is probably four to eight weeks in terms of really saving restaurants, so I hope that if people do care about it, they start to get pretty active now because the later part’s not going to work because restaurants are already saying they’re closing permanently.

DG:

Yeah.

AK:

So thank you for being generous with your time.

NP:

Any time.

AK:

Thank you for all your work on the IRC and good luck with your PPP loan.

NP:

Okay, thanks. Please remind everybody to visit the IRC website and repost our social media stuff and get involved. It’s not very hard and people ... Congress really does need to hear about how much we like our individual restaurants.

David Tobias, owner of The Wooly in New York City

AK:

We wanted you on because you actually got a PPP loan. You own a number of venues in downtown Manhattan in the Woolworth Building. Can you tell us about all your places and how it’s been?

David Tobias:

Yeah. Sure. Yeah, so we started a while ago with a private event business, grew that a bit, then opened a café, bake shop called The Wooly Daily, then after that, opened a restaurant, about a 73 seat formally sat restaurant, a couple years ago. So yeah, it’s been totally crazy, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we’re just trying to figure out next steps right now.

AK:

When the shutdown originally happened, did you shut everything down, did you stay open for delivery and take-outs, did you have to lay off a bunch of your staff?

DT:

Yeah. We laid off a whole bunch of people. We laid off a lot of people, and we shifted all of our business towards delivery, take-out, which was not really a primary focus of our business before. We’re mostly, our bread and butter is private events, big happy hour gatherings, lunch. That alone was a big pivot for us. We did delivery, but that’s not really ... It wasn’t really our focus. So it was a bit of a crash course for us. Thankfully for us, we did have a lot of the channels already set up, so we had our Seamlesses set up, we had our Caviar set up. We had begun the process with Uber Eats, and a lot of people, a lot of restaurants actually at that time didn’t have the tablets. They didn’t have a rep with a lot of these delivery services, so I know of a bunch that had to close temporarily while they figured out how to do that, while those companies, Seamless, Caviar, were incredibly understaffed doing their own lay offs, so you couldn’t get through to people, you couldn’t get tablets. A lot of these companies, while you can load the service up on your own tablet, they require you to start off with their own proprietary setup, so a lot of people didn’t have the channel set up.

So thankfully, despite us not doing a lot of delivery business at first, we already had that setup, so we were able to shift some focus and kind of keep ourselves busy with that while ... And more than anything, it didn’t really generate a lot of revenue, but it at least helped us stay a bit optimistic and kept people busy and kind of dreaming about what the future could be like with delivery and take-out alone.

AK:

And what was the process like applying for and then getting the loan?

DT:

For us, it was fairly seamless. We obviously really care about our staff a lot, so that was our primary focus and we were incredibly aggressive getting everyone as quickly as possible on unemployment that should be on it because obviously right now it’s incredibly favorable. Very quickly after that, we shifted focus to applying for the PPP. Now I don’t want to speak for everyone here that efficiency and focus on that immediately got it for you, but we have a good relationship with our bank, whose our lender, and we have a lot of stuff kind of organized on the back end. So we were just really thorough and really fast and basically applied as soon as humanly possible.

AK:

So one of the issues with the loan is that it’s kind of a ... The clock is ticking. You only have so much time to spend the money, so how are you guys thinking about how you’re spending the money?

DT:

To be honest, we are scared to spend the money. There’s too much unknown I think for anyone to feel incredibly confident spending the money. I think people fall into a few different camps at this point. There are the people who are incredibly optimistic and are just choosing to have faith, “This is a wild time, let’s just take a risk and go ahead.” Because obviously, the golden ticket here is a grant, is having this convert to a grant, so a lot of those details are not known yet. So some people are choosing just to have faith. This is a wild circumstance, everyone will be on small business and business owners’ sides right now and all those details will work in business owners’ favor. So there are those people.

There are people in the middle who are cautiously optimistic, and then there’s other people who got the money and are just sitting on it and are very realistically thinking about giving it back. Kind of keeping it there as an insurance policy, but hoping they don’t need to spend it, and if they do, at the time that they do, there’ll be more details. We’re kind of in that camp right now.

AK:

If it does go back into a loan and not a grant, from the restaurateur’s point of view, is this a good loan?

DT:

It’s a loan that restaurants can’t get typically. The restaurant industry, I’m sure you know, it’s notoriously difficult to get loans from financial institutions that look like this. Absolutely. However, it’s not really a typical loan also because the government does have rules with how you can even spend the loan money. So you can’t just spend the money on building dividers. You’re going to have the most incredible divider system.

AK:

Okay. So this can’t be a roundabout way of you getting a 1% loan?

DT:

Everyone’s fear is that, and that’s why there’s a lot of hesitation with using it right now.

DG:

How do you feel about telling other people that you’ve received the loan? It’s such a fucked situation that you should feel embarrassed or you’ve seen all these larger restaurant groups get attacked for applying and then receiving the money, but how do you feel, especially interfacing with smaller restaurants or people that have applied and not gotten it?

DT:

I have not felt ... I have felt like its been motivating to more people that I’ve been speaking to, that they should ... That it’s possible that ... Because a lot of people don’t know anyone who got it.

DG:

Interesting.

DT:

So the fact that it’s possible I think is motivating-

DG:

Or someone who got, like, 10% of it.

DT:

Exactly. I think that is a motivating factor for most of the people I speak to, where they’re like, “Oh, whoa.” They kind of perk up a little bit and they’re like, “Oh, interesting. Okay. I’m listening. Okay, maybe I should be a little bit more optimistic about this second phase of PPP that they’re talking about.” The fact that it’s a reality for a small business, a really small business like ours, I think can be motivating for sure, but I think there are bigger issues with the program that I think no matter what, it’s like, we’re kind of a bit of an outlier case and there are other issues with the PPP that still can distract and worry people for sure.

DG:

Right.

DT:

But similar to the unemployment situation that people had, it was a nightmare applying for it, the system was down, in New York at least, the website wasn’t working, people weren’t even sure if unemployment was going to happen, if they were going to get any type of subsidies, and the fact that you started to hear little stories trickle in about people actually getting it, it gave you a bit of hope that it would actually happen.

DG:

Yeah.

AK:

So I know despite all this, you are relatively optimistic about the future. So what do you see for this business, especially for someone who makes a lot of money on events? And that is one sector of hospitality that I think is very much in trouble. What do you see as a future?

DT:

I am optimistic because I have no choice right now, so really, no one has a choice. You either give up, close up shop, have other things in your life that you’ve had kind of gestating and bubbling that you put your energy into, or you try to work with what you’ve got, and that’s what we’re doing right now, no matter how vague it is. There are things that are already unprecedented, like the fact that we are getting a loan like this, that’s unprecedented and it’s unique, so these are the kinds of things that give me hope that there will be more good unprecedented things that happen. In terms of the pivot, while I think the restaurant game is going to change in terms of its physical destination, I think people’s desires for connection and for experiences through food, which is really what our business is based on, I don’t think that’s going to change.

So I think the question is, how can you deliver that to people? There’s just so much virtualization that will satisfy people. There’s just so much receiving ingredients to your kitchen and you creating the experience that people want, so our challenge right now is, how do we create a curated experience for people out of our physical location? And we have a lot of exciting possibilities right now that we’re working on. A lot of it is development. A lot of it has not been putting rubber to the road just yet, but I think the idea is, figure out as many possibilities that you can right now with your current resources, and then as soon as little opportunities happen, you can just flip a switch and you’re good to go.

So we’re going to assume that there’s going to be a need for office catering, controlled environments catering, creating experiences there from a corporate perspective and from people’s own .... Their own personal perspective at home and for events. That’s something that people will want. I mean, even like Passover dinner, people were looking for solutions, full solutions for a Passover dinner.

AK:

So in your point of view, if a restaurateur is saying, “Okay, I’m just going to put my concept on moth balls right now and then reopen when I get the go-ahead and everything’s going to be fine.” That’s a little naïve.

DT:

I don’t know what their unique financial perspective is and situation is. They might have the luxury of being able to do that and risk it and they can just wait and see what happens, and I am sure a lot ... Restaurant owners are pretty diligent in a lot of respects. I think that they know what the situation is going to be like if they can’t open. I, personally, I think that everyone should take this time to really look for innovative pivots that kind of keep the spirit of the restaurant space, events, food and beverage, all this stuff, I think people should look for things that kind of can carry that into a new era.

AK:

I mean, you have a strong lunch business and coffee shop, but a lot of your world surrounds bars and drinking and people being together. What do you see as the future of night life in cities like New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere?

DT:

I think it’s all going to be virtualized and put in Animal Crossing. I think that’s the future of hanging out with each other.

AK:

So sad.

DT:

I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s something that we keep trying to brainstorm around, and every time we do it, it doesn’t end well. I think I heard you say in a previous podcast, AK:, the idea of ... I think it was you. The idea that one of the reasons you go to a bar alone or a restaurant alone is to run into random people and the spontaneity of that and the randomness of that, it’s so special. I don’t know if you guys have found yourselves-

DG:

Sorry, I hate to pause you here, but-

DT:

Oh, that’s right. I remember. You poo-pooed the idea. Okay.

AK:

No, I think what I was saying is when you go out to dine alone, you want the energy.

DT:

Right. You want that energy.

AK:

But Daniel is the one who’s trying to meet people in bars.

DG:

No, no. I’m not taking personally, I’m not taking credit for that. I’m just saying, AK: has never left her house being like, “Man, I hope I rub shoulders with randoms.”

DT:

Fair enough.

AK:

Not usually my goal, but I like the energy.

DT:

We keep trying to figure out, how are we going to create this randomness, this carefree moment where people are connecting that didn’t know each other that get to know each other in new ways and you have that feeling to kind of explore parts of your persona that you don’t typically do during the day or in your day to day life? It’s a challenge. That’s one of the ones that we are kind of putting into a phase four category. We try to think of it as virtualization. We think of different ideas. Is there a virtual bar? A lot of people are doing these virtual bar things, but when you could push ... When you could hang up and you’re at home and you’re in your pajamas and you go to sleep, it just changes the urgency. It’s not throwing you out there and forcing you to deal with a situation, which is kind of part of the allure of going out at night, is sometimes you’re just forcing yourself to go out, and you have the best night of your life.

Is it going to be a speakeasy that you have to go through a full battery of tests right before you go into it? Which is certainly possible. I know that they’re doing things like that, similar, in other countries right now. Is it going to be all private clubs that can ask potentially prying questions about your personal life that you couldn’t do in a public space? Who knows? We’re at the point where every time we have this conversation, it goes so theoretical that it’s fun, but it’s not a great use of our time.

AK:

It makes me so sad.

DT:

For us, it’s a bit of a waiting game for sure and we’re looking for opportunities ... The one thing that we do have is we do have people working for us that can devote creative energy to thinking about this in a real way, which is exciting for us. So that’s one of the things that I’m ... And we have resources to use. It’s easy to come up with concepts in your bedroom, but when you could actually execute and try certain things because you have a commercial kitchen and you have a bunch of back stock of delivery items and ... You have different opportunities to give things a try, so that’s one thing that we’re fortunate with.

DG:

I think it’s super interesting. I think one of the reasons I find it challenging to speculate is I think you often have to dovetail your speculations into two different unique camps of, like, the future will be insanely severe and things will actually return sooner than we expect to a degree of normalcy, right? So it’s like, are we thinking about what happens long term when we have to actually figure out how to have cocktail bars over Zoom or are we thinking about it if we need to reduce our capacity at the bar by 50%? And I think those are just such different worlds. It makes speculation confusing.

DT:

Yeah.

DG:

I find. But I also think, one thing I’m ... I don’t know if I want to say I’m optimistic about, but I think people are more forgiving to swings and misses. If you decided that you guys were going to do some kind of virtual mixology experience where you delivered everyone 10 ingredients and you had them all gather and there was some kind of hunt where they have to figure out how to make the drink and they were all communicating over Zoom and it just fucking sucked, I feel like in normal times, it would be some big article about, “Wow, this big restaurant group had this night of drinking and it was a huge flop.”

I feel like there’s an opportunity for people to have giant whiffs right now, which I actually-

DT:

Totally.

DG:

I actually think, the Zoom hangouts I feel like have kind of faded out a little bit, right? Those live deejay experiences and things that people were doing the first couple weeks, being like, “Yeah, I’m going to this club and this club.” You’re not. I don’t think those things have really clicked. But you keep seeing iterations and I just like ... I appreciate the no man’s land of it and I appreciate that there is no standard.

DT:

I am totally on the same page as you. Bringing us to the restaurant space, the restaurant business before this, as you guys know, incredibly fragile. Everything can fuck you over. I mean, you have a water main break, your business is screwed for the month.

DG:

Right.

DT:

You have a couple really bad reviews where people are oddly passionate to bring your restaurant down because one of your staff was, I don’t know, had a bad day or something like that.

DG:

Right.

DT:

They could destroy your business. A train is down for a month, your bottom line for the year is totally screwed up. If you go into a new fancy establishment and a piece of meat wasn’t cooked perfect, a review is scathing and horrible and it just resonates and it’s online forever. This is a time-

DG:

And the domino effects of it. Yeah.

DT:

Exactly. This is a time where finally I think we’re a bit free of that and people are trying ... People should be trying things, like you said, with this ... The assumption is everyone is going to fail. The assumption is nothing is going to work. So you have the opportunity to try things out. Like you said, I think it’s a really interesting time. I mean, a great example of it, really funny, is The Maple, which everyone ... Maple happened a few years ago. People were so critical of it. They set a really high bar for themselves, but people were so critical of it. People were optimistic, then critical and critiquing little things. “Oh, I saw this,”-

DG:

It was, of course, the flashy, delivery only service that Dave Chang had a stake in.

DT:

Exactly, and now people are like, “This,” and talk about it fondly, and critiques of it back then were like, “I saw the same dinner on there two nights in a row.” What the hell? And now it’s talked about with such incredible fondness, obviously. I mean, it was a really cool idea and really cool service.

DG:

Yeah.

DT:

But there is, this is a time to give things a try because you have people on your side, especially if you’re an independent business. I’m not necessarily sure if the big businesses ... The larger companies are going to get that type of response, but this is the time to give things a try, throw things to the wall. Throw things on the wall, for sure.

DG:

All right. Just to wrap up, weirdest virtual night club idea you guys have had.

DT:

Probably Animal Crossing night club.

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[foulsharkstranger-blog]

4 Body fat Burner Supplements To Boost Metabolic Cost.

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Income sharing lately came to be an issue in the Presidential project with Hillary Rodham Clinton's statement last month that widespread income sharing in United States service will certainly be among her crucial economic tips to resolve the plight from the middle training class. As illustrated in the restraining purchase and breakup settlement, loan participated in no part for me personally and also certainly never has, apart from to the degree that I might give that to charitable organization and also, in doing so, hopefully assist those a lot less able to defend themselves," the actress stated. Performance in this mindset is first cutting things from our life (performance), then finding ways of feeling better worth for amount of money (performance). As a matter of fact, their function in business and lifestyle is to do exactly that, certainly not to create money for the sake of raising their riches and also standing - as a statement from success. 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[emthinks]

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

Although this is technically a reread in preparation of starting on the rest of the series, since it is one of my favorite series, I thought I should probably review it.

The one thing about Sarah J Maas, in my long break between my reading of Crown of Midnight and my re-read of this book (approximately 3 years, give or take?) is that I had forgotten exactly why I liked Sarah J Maas. It has been a while (a long, long while) since I’ve finished a book with the speed I did, not to mention the fact that I cannot recall a single instance when I had finished a re-read in that same speed. Although I always had this inkling, in the back of my mind, that I had ranked the Throne of Glass series in my top five favorite series of all time for a reason, disregarding the fact that I had only read two books of the intended six, I could never truly recall what the reasons actually were.

Needless to say, now I can. In perfect, clear, crisp detail. And the following will be a list of each and every single one of them.

Rating: 9.8/10

“We each survive in our own way.” - Celaena Sardothien

An Overview:

Perhaps I had intended to read this book more slowly, this time around. To garner a better understanding of the story, of its characters, of Sarah’s ultimate goal. That was, of course, all before. And then I started reading, and I flew threw it in under 48 hours. So please excuse me if I leave out some details.

However, despite my claims that I had forgotten nearly everything in this series, I still could recall (most) of the important plot points, including (but not limited to): Caelana’s progress through the Test, the accumulating bodies of dead Champions, Cain as our antagonist, and Nehemia as the best friend one could ever ask. I did not, however, remember the role Kaltain had played, or the manipulation by Duke Perrington and the King, using her as a pawn to test their powers and her consequential headaches. (Tbh, I think I noticed it the first time around though.) 

Keeping that in mind though, despite most of the critical plot points, I still plowed through this story like no tomorrow. I still enjoyed all the banter between Celaena and Dorian; I still loved visualizing Celaena overcoming all the obstacles set before her and trouncing her competition soundly in the Tests (her duel with Varian (Varin?) was especially fun); I still loved the easy relationship with Nehemia; I still loved the fight sequences (especially the last one with Cain, where Elena came and it made Celaena look crazy to outsiders but hey, who cares?); and most of all, I still loved that I still loved this book, this series, this world, despite the years. That’s how you truly know it’s a good book.

“We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happens to be more visible than most.” – Celaena Sardothien

Celaena is still the most badass girl I remember. I remember reading the summary, of her being an assassin, and I was like “hell yeah!” She’s great. And I love how she isn’t portrayed to be this perfect protagonist. Yeah, she can fight her way out of anything, but she’s also arrogant and selfish. She’s too proud of her abilities, sometimes, and I like how training with Chaol, with the other Champions, really knock her down a peg. Or two. She needs that humbleness. Yes, she has spirit, which is impressive after a year in Endovier, but she has to show humility at some points too. And I think that’s great character development. And I think her relationship with Nehemia really propelled her towards that.

Speaking of whom. Nehemia. God, the female characters really are great, huh? They kick fucking ass. Nehemia, who knows she’s here more as a POW than anyone with actual power, doesn’t give up. She still attends these councils with the King and advocates for her people, for their freedom. She doesn’t back down from a fight, even if she knows she’s going to lose. Yes, I kind of hated her when we found out she was just faking her lack of knowledge of the common tongue to get information, but then I realized that was just another badass thing she did. She did everything she could to help her people, and I really think that’s admirable.

On the other hand...Dorian. Oh, Dorian. How I love you. But how I also kind of hate you. God, it’s such a balance with everyone in this book, but especially you. Dorian is fun and good. He knows what his father is doing is wrong (really wrong) but he doesn’t do anything. He is as terrified of the king as anyone else. He doesn’t have any backbone. And I really think that’s going to come back to bite him in the ass one day. Like it’s said, he’s a reader, not a fighter. But he needs to be both, if he will become King of Adarlan one day. He needs to know the history of the kingdom, yes, feel the plight of the people, sure, but he also needs to know how to defend himself, fight for his own beliefs. Nehemia does that beautifully, because Nehemia hasn’t been sheltered her whole life. Oh, you can argue that Dorian’s battles are more subtle, the silent wars between his father, his need of escapism from the family, but honestly, he hasn’t suffered nearly as much as anyone else. Don’t get me wrong: I still adore Dorian. I just...would adore him a little bit more if he grew a spine. Or just a few of the spinal bones. I’m not picky. 

Even Chaol dirtied his hands in this book. Which. I still can’t believe that Chaol, the Captain of the Guard, hadn’t killed a single person until Cain. Don’t you find that a little ridiculous? Perhaps Chaol is even more sheltered than Dorian. Or perhaps we just don’t know where his fights are. Either way, we don’t learn a lot about Chaol. Yes, I’m glad he’s there, a constant presence by Celaena’s side, training with her and sparring and all. But. He’s just there. Supposedly, it’s “two men love her” and he’s one of the two. I know he’s not Dorian in his show of affection, but come on. Give me something to work with here. I really don’t know what to think of you.

On the other hand, I know exactly what to think of some of these other characters:

The fucking king. Needs to die. Now. Please and thank you.

Jeoffrey Oh whoops. Sorry. Hollin. But in my defense, he is totally, 100% Jeoffrey from Game of Thrones. Just saying.

“Names are not important. It’s what lies inside of you that matters.” – Princess Nehemia Ytger

Questions:

Team Dorian or Team Chaol?

There are many things I didn’t remember from my first reading of Throne of Glass, but this was not one of them. I was (and still am) a strong shipper of Celorian. 

“You could rattle the stars. You could do anything, if you only dared.” – Elena Galathynius Havilliard

[easyfoodnetwork]

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs who got coveted loans explain why they are sitting on them Throughout the month of April, much of the conversation around the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s stimulus for small businesses, revolved around who received and didn’t receive the loans. But now that small businesses are getting through, can they even use this money? This week on Eater’s Digest, restaurateurs Naomi Pomeroy in Portland, OR and David Tobias in New York City explain that the restrictions of the loans don’t really fit the needs of the industry and the guidance around their use and forgiveness are too vague. Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts. Read the full transcript of our coversation below: Naomi Pomeroy, owner of Beast and Expatriate in Portland, OR: Amanda Kludt: For those who aren’t familiar, can you explain, tell us about your restaurant group, your collection of businesses? Naomi Pomeroy: Yeah. I have a small restaurant in Northeast Portland called Beast, and it’s a 26 seat fine dining restaurant with two big long tables and an open kitchen, and we do a six course tasting menu. Menu changes every two weeks, or did anyway. And then Expatriate is my cocktail bar that I own with my husband and it’s right across the street from Beast and it’s, like, 35 seats and has food and nice cocktails. AK: And are they in business to any degree at this point? NP: No. Our last day of service was March 15th and we’ve been closed since then. Everybody filed for unemployment on the 16th and we don’t know when we’re going to reopen and we haven’t done any kind of take-out or delivery or anything like that. Daniel Geneen: Would you mind just saying how many employees you have and what kind of loan you guys requested? NP: Oh yeah. So everybody that applies for the PPP has to do their calculations in the same way. So it’s two and a half times your average monthly payroll for your establishment. One is Beast, we had 15 employees and the other was Expatriate, that also had 15 employees, so total of 30 employees. I applied separately for the two establishments. At Beast, I think I got $170,000.00, and I think at Expatriate, we got like $80,000.00. Something like that. So now we have this money, but it- AK: Can you talk about the process of filing for the loan and how that went for you? NP: Yeah. Sure. I think it went the same as it did for anybody else that tried, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners, since there are probably some people in the industry, would be familiar with that, but if not, I’ll tell you that it made the Obamacare website crash of 2008 look like a cake walk. It was definitely difficult to navigate and it actually ... I have a PPP now, which is really awesome, except that it’s also just as equally mysterious as the application process is the how to distribute the funds or how to get in compliance with the regulations around it. But yeah, there was a mad rush. I mean, I’m part of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which we formed March 17th or 18th sort of in quick response on a national level to deal with corona. Even with all of our members who are running ... Sometimes Kevin Boehm, he’s a restaurateur for the Boka Group in Chicago, he’s been kind of a leading voice in how to deal with the PPP with the application process and then kind of with the guidance, and even he says that it’s just, the guidance changes a little bit every day, and even within his community in Chicago, some attorneys and tax accountants are saying different things, some bankers are having different interpretations. So everything from start to finish on the process has been a literal cluster-you-know-what. DG: Oh, we can say it. NP: Cluster-fuck! It’s been a total cluster-fuck! Yeah, so anyway, nobody really understands it, and even what’s so funny is that even though I got funded for my PPP at the beginning of this week, I was finally able to talk to my banker and I said, “Well, I just signed some loan documents that I don’t even feel like I really understand how to get forgiveness on.” Because the forgiveness isn’t up to the government or the SBA, the forgiveness is going to be up to the individual banking institutions on what qualifies for forgiveness or how the SBA guidance is interpreted. So it’s best if you got the PPP to have a good relationship with your banker, which I do, and when I was in touch with my banker she said, “Well, we’re really unclear also as to how forgiveness is going to work, and we recommend that if you got the PPP, you try to hold on to it and not start spending it until hopefully a little more guidance comes out in the next week or so.” And it was just ... Literally got no extra information from her. She said she was confused, so that does not really bode well for the whole situation. AK: So even the banks are saying you might be smart to wait to spend the money. NP: Yeah. I mean, the advice right now that has been circulating in the IRC and in my community anyway is that if you get funded and you need it to all be forgiven, which I think is the situation that most of us are in, is that we can’t ... Going into an uncertain economic future and restaurants with extra loan obligations sounds like a recipe for disaster. So I think for almost everybody that received a PPP, their goal is to have it 100% forgiven, and because the guidance is still being fine tuned, let’s call it, from the SBA, the recommendation has been to hold onto it for as long as you can. I can only hold on to it without ... I mean, my eight week clock starts ticking in six days from now. So right now, I’m feet on the ground, doing lots of math calculations, figuring out how many of my employees want to come back. And I mean, I use the word ... I’m doing air quotes right now because what I mean by work is I want to find out how many of my employees are willing to come off unemployment for me to pay them to stay at home. AK: Right. NP: Which is just so crazy to even say that out loud because it just sounds like such a stupid idea. AK: You have no work for those staffers. NP: No, and I guess my big generalized fear is that as we’re kind of getting into this moment, we’re starting to talk about opening up restaurants again slowly and with distancing guidelines and hopefully safely, I guess depending on what state you’re in. I’m not sure what Georgia’s doing there, but for those of us who are kind of considering that this could be coming in a few weeks or a month, my fear is that people that get the PPP are going to push into opening up very quickly, force their staffs back to work because they legitimately need to pay their rent and utilities. It’s putting owners in a very tough spot and it’s also putting employees in a very tough spot because in a lot of states, I think it’s actually a federal mandate that if you are offered a job back and you refuse it, you actually lose your unemployment benefits. AK: Yeah, and right now I’ve been reading that unemployment is oftentimes better than what they could be getting if they did go back to their jobs, and then if they go back to their job, the restaurant might end up closing ultimately and then they have to scramble to get back on unemployment. Have you been hearing the same? NP: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that is the crux of it. I mean, my math calculations right now, obviously I would like to make good with my landlord so I have a good relationship going forward, and as a business owner, look, I understand the plight of the landlord also. I don’t have a big company. My landlord owns the building, but she has a mortgage on the building also. So it’s like when I don’t pay my rent, I’m also putting her in a bad position with her bank. So I would like to be able to make good on that relationship, but I don’t want to do so at the expense of my staff, so I am literally looking at, can I hire back most of my staff and pay them more on unemployment and then help facilitate them getting back on unemployment in eight weeks, because I don’t think our restaurant will be open then. So I think it’s definitely an interesting kind of ... It’s just, it’s a quagmire that we’re in. It’s a real mess and I don’t see the way out. DG: In that case, you would be using your PPP to pay your utilities and pay the staff and end up with zero of it. NP: Well, yeah. The funny thing is, is that the PPP, I’m just going to go ahead and call it what it is, which is, it is literally a kind of ... It’s a disguised hand-out to restaurant owners that helps the government get their unemployment numbers to look better than they are. I’m sorry to laugh, but I just think about it as, it literally is just us bailing out the unemployment system. AK: If you were able to start from scratch and write the bill yourself, how would you, I don’t know, divvy out the money? Would you just give a blank check? NP: Well, I mean, look, obviously that’s kind of, maybe that’s asking kind of a bit much. All of our work has to be very bipartisan at this point, especially, you know, Congress is in this period of just duking it out with each other as well, so I think in order to push anything through, it has to sound like something everyone could get behind. So when you talk about getting people off unemployment, you know everybody’s interested in getting people back to work. I don’t think there’s any question about that part of it. I think people want to open back up and they want to get back to work, so I don’t mind that we have to take this money that is only forgivable if we use it in a certain way, that makes sense, I mean, you don’t want people that say, “Oh, my restaurant’s not going to reopen again anyway, so I’m going to take this $150,000.00 and buy a house in Tahiti,” or whatever. Like, yeah, you don’t want that. DG: Right. NP: So I think what we’re talking about, what makes sense is, if the guidance could be switched to when a restaurant is able to open and has a business to return to, that’s when your clock starts ticking and then you need to use that money for your first few months back in business again. AK: Would it also be useful to open up the restrictions so you could use the money to make your restaurant, I don’t know, more amenable to the current climate? NP: I mean, it has to be used in the restaurant, that should be real, right? But if what we’re talking about is trying to get the economy back moving again, we’re going to have to open up our restaurants in a way that makes sense with whatever the current climate is going to be, and I think while we don’t know exactly what that current climate’s going to look like, there isn’t a single person out there that’s projecting that it’s going to be any better than 50% capacity. And even if you read a lot of the state guidelines for reopening, I mean, they’re all actually ... Our state and Oregon is going, I’ve heard, to mandate social distancing, six feet between all parties that aren’t related to each other, no private parties larger than 10, and a 50% occupancy rate. So if you’re talking about that, at least in my restaurant, what I need to use the PPP money for is to pay a couple of my staff members to help me brainstorm and revitalize and rebrand my whole thing. I’m sorry, whoever didn’t make it to Beast, hopefully we’ll do something cool like that again, but that babe is not coming back. We can’t do it. It’s two communal dining tables, there’s a foot and a half between each of the guests and you’re sitting with a bunch of people that you’ve never met before in your life, you don’t know where they’ve been. So the model of Beast is dead and I think I’m okay with that, but I actually need some money to restructure and rebrand and retrain. And even if you’re just talking about the money that has to get spent on making sure that we can safely have diners in our restaurants, like buying PPE for our staff. So far, my state’s not offering any free ... We have to laminate our menus and we have to get all this disinfectant and you have to spray between each customer, and everything’s going to take longer, there’s going to be less people, and I think that really the big thing to think about here is that if we’re talking about operating at 50% capacity, we’re just talking about a whole lot of restaurants who can’t do what they did before and do that. Margins are just too tight. NP: So we basically need all that money to be able to use it however we need to create whatever brand new business we need to create to make it through. So we can go back to employing all the people because obviously restaurants do employ a ton of people in this country. I think it’s 11 million in independent restaurants, so it’s pretty important for us to try to figure this out, and it’s good for the economy, so that’s why it becomes this bipartisan issue that we can probably get some work done on because everybody knows that 11 million jobs is worth a lot. AK: Do you want to talk a little bit about your work with the IRC and what the next steps are there for you guys? I know you released a big letter this week. NP: Yeah. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so when the IRC was formed, the CARES Act was basically already on the floor being passed. We wrote a letter to Congress, the IRC did, and we actually are getting a lot of traction right now, which is so cool. The IRC, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, was formed literally on March 17th or whatever and now we have 51 thousand or more than that people participating, so that’s pretty quick. AK: Wow. NP: And we’re getting some traction on The Hill, which is really cool. We just decided, it’s like a quick phone call that was Tom Colicchio and me and Kwame and a bunch of different chefs of the James Beard Foundation, and it was like, “Oh my God, we have to do something.” And we realized, we can’t just put stuff on our social media and be like, “Hey guys, listen up. We’ve got to save restaurants.” We got funding from James Beard Foundation, American Express, and Chase, and we’re actually working with a lobbying group to push this legislation through and be heard, and it’s working. So we wrote this letter to Congress and we were asked for $120 billion stabilization fund for the restaurant industry that will be focused on smaller, independent restaurants and restaurants with less access to funding, which is just like you would imagine. Anybody that’s running a Mom and Pop place that can’t pay for a high powered attorney and tax accountant to get their PPP applications filled out. I mean, we just want to help people and this would be in the form of grants. And this is the fix that we kind of dreamed about but were too late on in the first round of funding, so this is essentially a carve out for independent restaurants, and people are listening, so I think that’s really, really cool. And if people that are listening to the show want to be involved, they can go to SaveRestaurants.com, which is our website, and there’s lots of information. They made it so easy. You can go and click through and email your Congresspeople straight from the website and use your voice to add to the coalition because really, I think what’s important is people have to realize that what’s at stake is the entire industry. It’s expected that I think 30% of restaurants or more won’t make it through this. I read different statistics all the time, and I’m not a numbers person, so I’m not sure, but listen, it’s a total shit storm. AK: It’s big. NP: Yeah. And we don’t want to lose the diversity, right? Because I think about the kinds of restaurants that I like to eat out at, and they aren’t all places that you’ve heard of. I think about the places that I love and care about, and it’s just little noodle shops or taco trucks and whatever, like that. And it’s just like, we’ve got to figure out how to make sure that those people are getting the attention and funding that they need to make it through, and I don’t think that that funding should be limited to having to hire back 100% of your team when you’re going to be 50% as busy. Restaurant margins are already so tight that we can’t afford that, and we need to do everything that we can. If independent restaurants employ 11 million people and create a trillion, I think ... Not just independent restaurants, but all restaurants in the US I think contribute a trillion dollars to the US economy, then it’s obviously worth spending a little bit of money on. I know that $120 billion doesn’t sound like a little bit, but if you spend $120 billion and your return on that is a trillion, you’re doing pretty well. AK: Yeah, I think it works out, and I think we’re at a time when we need to be talking bigger and bigger numbers for these relief packages. NP: I hope people understand that the window of time that we have to address this problem is probably four to eight weeks in terms of really saving restaurants, so I hope that if people do care about it, they start to get pretty active now because the later part’s not going to work because restaurants are already saying they’re closing permanently. DG: Yeah. AK: So thank you for being generous with your time. NP: Any time. AK: Thank you for all your work on the IRC and good luck with your PPP loan. NP: Okay, thanks. Please remind everybody to visit the IRC website and repost our social media stuff and get involved. It’s not very hard and people ... Congress really does need to hear about how much we like our individual restaurants. David Tobias, owner of The Wooly in New York City AK: We wanted you on because you actually got a PPP loan. You own a number of venues in downtown Manhattan in the Woolworth Building. Can you tell us about all your places and how it’s been? David Tobias: Yeah. Sure. Yeah, so we started a while ago with a private event business, grew that a bit, then opened a café, bake shop called The Wooly Daily, then after that, opened a restaurant, about a 73 seat formally sat restaurant, a couple years ago. So yeah, it’s been totally crazy, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we’re just trying to figure out next steps right now. AK: When the shutdown originally happened, did you shut everything down, did you stay open for delivery and take-outs, did you have to lay off a bunch of your staff? DT: Yeah. We laid off a whole bunch of people. We laid off a lot of people, and we shifted all of our business towards delivery, take-out, which was not really a primary focus of our business before. We’re mostly, our bread and butter is private events, big happy hour gatherings, lunch. That alone was a big pivot for us. We did delivery, but that’s not really ... It wasn’t really our focus. So it was a bit of a crash course for us. Thankfully for us, we did have a lot of the channels already set up, so we had our Seamlesses set up, we had our Caviar set up. We had begun the process with Uber Eats, and a lot of people, a lot of restaurants actually at that time didn’t have the tablets. They didn’t have a rep with a lot of these delivery services, so I know of a bunch that had to close temporarily while they figured out how to do that, while those companies, Seamless, Caviar, were incredibly understaffed doing their own lay offs, so you couldn’t get through to people, you couldn’t get tablets. A lot of these companies, while you can load the service up on your own tablet, they require you to start off with their own proprietary setup, so a lot of people didn’t have the channel set up. So thankfully, despite us not doing a lot of delivery business at first, we already had that setup, so we were able to shift some focus and kind of keep ourselves busy with that while ... And more than anything, it didn’t really generate a lot of revenue, but it at least helped us stay a bit optimistic and kept people busy and kind of dreaming about what the future could be like with delivery and take-out alone. AK: And what was the process like applying for and then getting the loan? DT: For us, it was fairly seamless. We obviously really care about our staff a lot, so that was our primary focus and we were incredibly aggressive getting everyone as quickly as possible on unemployment that should be on it because obviously right now it’s incredibly favorable. Very quickly after that, we shifted focus to applying for the PPP. Now I don’t want to speak for everyone here that efficiency and focus on that immediately got it for you, but we have a good relationship with our bank, whose our lender, and we have a lot of stuff kind of organized on the back end. So we were just really thorough and really fast and basically applied as soon as humanly possible. AK: So one of the issues with the loan is that it’s kind of a ... The clock is ticking. You only have so much time to spend the money, so how are you guys thinking about how you’re spending the money? DT: To be honest, we are scared to spend the money. There’s too much unknown I think for anyone to feel incredibly confident spending the money. I think people fall into a few different camps at this point. There are the people who are incredibly optimistic and are just choosing to have faith, “This is a wild time, let’s just take a risk and go ahead.” Because obviously, the golden ticket here is a grant, is having this convert to a grant, so a lot of those details are not known yet. So some people are choosing just to have faith. This is a wild circumstance, everyone will be on small business and business owners’ sides right now and all those details will work in business owners’ favor. So there are those people. There are people in the middle who are cautiously optimistic, and then there’s other people who got the money and are just sitting on it and are very realistically thinking about giving it back. Kind of keeping it there as an insurance policy, but hoping they don’t need to spend it, and if they do, at the time that they do, there’ll be more details. We’re kind of in that camp right now. AK: If it does go back into a loan and not a grant, from the restaurateur’s point of view, is this a good loan? DT: It’s a loan that restaurants can’t get typically. The restaurant industry, I’m sure you know, it’s notoriously difficult to get loans from financial institutions that look like this. Absolutely. However, it’s not really a typical loan also because the government does have rules with how you can even spend the loan money. So you can’t just spend the money on building dividers. You’re going to have the most incredible divider system. AK: Okay. So this can’t be a roundabout way of you getting a 1% loan? DT: Everyone’s fear is that, and that’s why there’s a lot of hesitation with using it right now. DG: How do you feel about telling other people that you’ve received the loan? It’s such a fucked situation that you should feel embarrassed or you’ve seen all these larger restaurant groups get attacked for applying and then receiving the money, but how do you feel, especially interfacing with smaller restaurants or people that have applied and not gotten it? DT: I have not felt ... I have felt like its been motivating to more people that I’ve been speaking to, that they should ... That it’s possible that ... Because a lot of people don’t know anyone who got it. DG: Interesting. DT: So the fact that it’s possible I think is motivating- DG: Or someone who got, like, 10% of it. DT: Exactly. I think that is a motivating factor for most of the people I speak to, where they’re like, “Oh, whoa.” They kind of perk up a little bit and they’re like, “Oh, interesting. Okay. I’m listening. Okay, maybe I should be a little bit more optimistic about this second phase of PPP that they’re talking about.” The fact that it’s a reality for a small business, a really small business like ours, I think can be motivating for sure, but I think there are bigger issues with the program that I think no matter what, it’s like, we’re kind of a bit of an outlier case and there are other issues with the PPP that still can distract and worry people for sure. DG: Right. DT: But similar to the unemployment situation that people had, it was a nightmare applying for it, the system was down, in New York at least, the website wasn’t working, people weren’t even sure if unemployment was going to happen, if they were going to get any type of subsidies, and the fact that you started to hear little stories trickle in about people actually getting it, it gave you a bit of hope that it would actually happen. DG: Yeah. AK: So I know despite all this, you are relatively optimistic about the future. So what do you see for this business, especially for someone who makes a lot of money on events? And that is one sector of hospitality that I think is very much in trouble. What do you see as a future? DT: I am optimistic because I have no choice right now, so really, no one has a choice. You either give up, close up shop, have other things in your life that you’ve had kind of gestating and bubbling that you put your energy into, or you try to work with what you’ve got, and that’s what we’re doing right now, no matter how vague it is. There are things that are already unprecedented, like the fact that we are getting a loan like this, that’s unprecedented and it’s unique, so these are the kinds of things that give me hope that there will be more good unprecedented things that happen. In terms of the pivot, while I think the restaurant game is going to change in terms of its physical destination, I think people’s desires for connection and for experiences through food, which is really what our business is based on, I don’t think that’s going to change. So I think the question is, how can you deliver that to people? There’s just so much virtualization that will satisfy people. There’s just so much receiving ingredients to your kitchen and you creating the experience that people want, so our challenge right now is, how do we create a curated experience for people out of our physical location? And we have a lot of exciting possibilities right now that we’re working on. A lot of it is development. A lot of it has not been putting rubber to the road just yet, but I think the idea is, figure out as many possibilities that you can right now with your current resources, and then as soon as little opportunities happen, you can just flip a switch and you’re good to go. So we’re going to assume that there’s going to be a need for office catering, controlled environments catering, creating experiences there from a corporate perspective and from people’s own .... Their own personal perspective at home and for events. That’s something that people will want. I mean, even like Passover dinner, people were looking for solutions, full solutions for a Passover dinner. AK: So in your point of view, if a restaurateur is saying, “Okay, I’m just going to put my concept on moth balls right now and then reopen when I get the go-ahead and everything’s going to be fine.” That’s a little naïve. DT: I don’t know what their unique financial perspective is and situation is. They might have the luxury of being able to do that and risk it and they can just wait and see what happens, and I am sure a lot ... Restaurant owners are pretty diligent in a lot of respects. I think that they know what the situation is going to be like if they can’t open. I, personally, I think that everyone should take this time to really look for innovative pivots that kind of keep the spirit of the restaurant space, events, food and beverage, all this stuff, I think people should look for things that kind of can carry that into a new era. AK: I mean, you have a strong lunch business and coffee shop, but a lot of your world surrounds bars and drinking and people being together. What do you see as the future of night life in cities like New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere? DT: I think it’s all going to be virtualized and put in Animal Crossing. I think that’s the future of hanging out with each other. AK: So sad. DT: I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s something that we keep trying to brainstorm around, and every time we do it, it doesn’t end well. I think I heard you say in a previous podcast, AK:, the idea of ... I think it was you. The idea that one of the reasons you go to a bar alone or a restaurant alone is to run into random people and the spontaneity of that and the randomness of that, it’s so special. I don’t know if you guys have found yourselves- DG: Sorry, I hate to pause you here, but- DT: Oh, that’s right. I remember. You poo-pooed the idea. Okay. AK: No, I think what I was saying is when you go out to dine alone, you want the energy. DT: Right. You want that energy. AK: But Daniel is the one who’s trying to meet people in bars. DG: No, no. I’m not taking personally, I’m not taking credit for that. I’m just saying, AK: has never left her house being like, “Man, I hope I rub shoulders with randoms.” DT: Fair enough. AK: Not usually my goal, but I like the energy. DT: We keep trying to figure out, how are we going to create this randomness, this carefree moment where people are connecting that didn’t know each other that get to know each other in new ways and you have that feeling to kind of explore parts of your persona that you don’t typically do during the day or in your day to day life? It’s a challenge. That’s one of the ones that we are kind of putting into a phase four category. We try to think of it as virtualization. We think of different ideas. Is there a virtual bar? A lot of people are doing these virtual bar things, but when you could push ... When you could hang up and you’re at home and you’re in your pajamas and you go to sleep, it just changes the urgency. It’s not throwing you out there and forcing you to deal with a situation, which is kind of part of the allure of going out at night, is sometimes you’re just forcing yourself to go out, and you have the best night of your life. Is it going to be a speakeasy that you have to go through a full battery of tests right before you go into it? Which is certainly possible. I know that they’re doing things like that, similar, in other countries right now. Is it going to be all private clubs that can ask potentially prying questions about your personal life that you couldn’t do in a public space? Who knows? We’re at the point where every time we have this conversation, it goes so theoretical that it’s fun, but it’s not a great use of our time. AK: It makes me so sad. DT: For us, it’s a bit of a waiting game for sure and we’re looking for opportunities ... The one thing that we do have is we do have people working for us that can devote creative energy to thinking about this in a real way, which is exciting for us. So that’s one of the things that I’m ... And we have resources to use. It’s easy to come up with concepts in your bedroom, but when you could actually execute and try certain things because you have a commercial kitchen and you have a bunch of back stock of delivery items and ... You have different opportunities to give things a try, so that’s one thing that we’re fortunate with. DG: I think it’s super interesting. I think one of the reasons I find it challenging to speculate is I think you often have to dovetail your speculations into two different unique camps of, like, the future will be insanely severe and things will actually return sooner than we expect to a degree of normalcy, right? So it’s like, are we thinking about what happens long term when we have to actually figure out how to have cocktail bars over Zoom or are we thinking about it if we need to reduce our capacity at the bar by 50%? And I think those are just such different worlds. It makes speculation confusing. DT: Yeah. DG: I find. But I also think, one thing I’m ... I don’t know if I want to say I’m optimistic about, but I think people are more forgiving to swings and misses. If you decided that you guys were going to do some kind of virtual mixology experience where you delivered everyone 10 ingredients and you had them all gather and there was some kind of hunt where they have to figure out how to make the drink and they were all communicating over Zoom and it just fucking sucked, I feel like in normal times, it would be some big article about, “Wow, this big restaurant group had this night of drinking and it was a huge flop.” I feel like there’s an opportunity for people to have giant whiffs right now, which I actually- DT: Totally. DG: I actually think, the Zoom hangouts I feel like have kind of faded out a little bit, right? Those live deejay experiences and things that people were doing the first couple weeks, being like, “Yeah, I’m going to this club and this club.” You’re not. I don’t think those things have really clicked. But you keep seeing iterations and I just like ... I appreciate the no man’s land of it and I appreciate that there is no standard. DT: I am totally on the same page as you. Bringing us to the restaurant space, the restaurant business before this, as you guys know, incredibly fragile. Everything can fuck you over. I mean, you have a water main break, your business is screwed for the month. DG: Right. DT: You have a couple really bad reviews where people are oddly passionate to bring your restaurant down because one of your staff was, I don’t know, had a bad day or something like that. DG: Right. DT: They could destroy your business. A train is down for a month, your bottom line for the year is totally screwed up. If you go into a new fancy establishment and a piece of meat wasn’t cooked perfect, a review is scathing and horrible and it just resonates and it’s online forever. This is a time- DG: And the domino effects of it. Yeah. DT: Exactly. This is a time where finally I think we’re a bit free of that and people are trying ... People should be trying things, like you said, with this ... The assumption is everyone is going to fail. The assumption is nothing is going to work. So you have the opportunity to try things out. Like you said, I think it’s a really interesting time. I mean, a great example of it, really funny, is The Maple, which everyone ... Maple happened a few years ago. People were so critical of it. They set a really high bar for themselves, but people were so critical of it. People were optimistic, then critical and critiquing little things. “Oh, I saw this,”- DG: It was, of course, the flashy, delivery only service that Dave Chang had a stake in. DT: Exactly, and now people are like, “This,” and talk about it fondly, and critiques of it back then were like, “I saw the same dinner on there two nights in a row.” What the hell? And now it’s talked about with such incredible fondness, obviously. I mean, it was a really cool idea and really cool service. DG: Yeah. DT: But there is, this is a time to give things a try because you have people on your side, especially if you’re an independent business. I’m not necessarily sure if the big businesses ... The larger companies are going to get that type of response, but this is the time to give things a try, throw things to the wall. Throw things on the wall, for sure. DG: All right. Just to wrap up, weirdest virtual night club idea you guys have had. DT: Probably Animal Crossing night club. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Wr0fr9

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