4 Ways You Can Help Local Restaurants Survive

We asked Francesca Hong, owner of Morris Ramen and member-elect of the Wisconsin State Assembly, what our community could do to support area restaurants, and here’s what she said:

1. Dine out (or order in) when you can, tip well, and try not to use 3rd party delivery services (like Grubhub, Doordash and Uber Eats). Order from the restaurant directly so more money stays in their pockets.
   
   
2. Call Congress NOW, before the session breaks for the holidays, and demand they include The Restaurants Act in the stimulus package. PPP funds distributed to date have been insufficient and inequitable, and it’s simply not enough. You can reach Congress via the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell them that restaurants need targeted relief.
   
   
3. Take action at www.saverestaurants.com. Click here to sign the Independent Restaurant Coalition’s Letter to Congress AND click here to fill out a form that will automatically send emails to Congress, asking them for their support for the 500,000 independent restaurants and 11 million jobs on the brink of going away forever.
   
   
4. We can help neighbors who are struggling and help our restaurants by donating to local project Cook It Forward. Cook It Forward is a collaboration between local restaurants and local nonprofits to create an end-to-end distribution network to tackle food insecurity in Madison while helping Madison restaurants have a way to keep their staff employed. The organization has a waitlist of both participating restaurants and for families in need of meals. More funding will directly increase the capacity of Cook It Forward Madison to help more restaurants and more Madison youth, singles and families.