“The California Restaurant Foundation (CRF), a nonprofit that invests in and empowers California restaurants and their workforce, has awarded 278 independent restaurants with $5,000 grants as part of its fourth consecutive Restaurants Care® Resilience Fund. The grants were made possible via thoughtful donations from SoCalGas, The PG&E Corporation Foundation (PG&E Foundation) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), which have contributed to the fund since 2021. Recipients can use the $5,000 assistance for equipment and technology upgrades, unforeseen hardships, employee retention bonuses and employee training, all of which allow California’s independent restaurant owners and caterers to invest in the longevity of their business and employees.”
"We're incredibly thankful to our generous donors for their continued support, which has afforded us the opportunity to assist thousands of business owners in California’s food industry since 2021,” said Alycia Harshfield, Executive Director of CRF. “Together, we have proudly sustained the Resilience Fund for the past four years, ensuring that California's independent restaurant owners and caterers remain a vital and vibrant part of our state's culinary landscape and economy for many years ahead."
“Notably, 76 percent of the grant recipients identify as female, and 73 percent identify as people of color. More than 70 percent of this year’s recipients plan to use the $5,000 grants for kitchen equipment or technology upgrades, and 17 percent will dedicate the funds to employee retention bonuses. To qualify, the restaurants and caterers needed to have fewer than five units, and less than $3 million in revenue.
Hi, I'm Sherry Yard, the Los Angeles advisory board for Careers Through Culinary Arts program. When I want the absolute best in food 411, I listen to the SoCal restaurant show right here on AM830KLAA. And welcome back. It is the Labor Day holiday weekend version of the SoCal restaurant show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon, right here on AM830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024. And you can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show, and thanks for being out there. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety produce and West Coast prime meets. It is not an easy time to be in the restaurant business in California these days. And fortunately, there are resources out there to help restaurateurs and their employees in a variety of ways. And leading the charge for a number of years has been the California restaurant foundation. They are a nonprofit that does a lot of good work. And annually, they have a program called the restaurants care resilience fund. And they just have awarded their 2024 grants. And we wanted to have their executive director, Alicia Harshfield, who is no stranger to the SoCal restaurant show on to talk about this year's program, because it's very promising and benefiting a lot of people that can make very good use of those grants. And it is a pleasure to welcome Alicia back to the show. Good morning and welcome. Good morning, Andy. Thanks for having me back on and happy Labor Day weekend and to you too. Now, first of all, Alicia, let's back up a little bit. And, you know, we're specifically going to be talking about the restaurant's care resilience fund grants. But day in and day out, if you can review for our audience, what the California restaurant foundation does. Thanks for asking. Well, we are, as you mentioned, a nonprofit that serves the food and beverage industry. So we focus on three really important areas. But what's at the heart of everything we do are people, whether it's the teams that we work with in high school culinary arts programs, or college students receiving scholarships from our foundation, so they can pursue their educational pursuits and dreams, or food and beverage workers like chefs and cooks and dishwashers that are facing a hardship, receiving a grant from us, and then through the resilience fund, independent restaurants, also receiving financial assistance to build resilience. So again, it's all about people helping our industry be a great place to work, a great place to share meal with guests and thrive. And, you know, one might note that in terms of the need for what you do, particularly coming post pandemic, you must be more popular than ever, Alicia. Well, yes, and I'm just really grateful that we've had the resources to adapt to the changes and the needs of our community that we serve over the years, and continue to be there for restaurants and for people in our industry. Yeah, it's been a wild ride for the last few years as everyone knows, and I'm just so proud that we are able to, with the resilience fund, continue to keep supporting restaurants because of the incredible support we have from CalGAS, SDG&E, and PG&E, and the community. Here, here to that. When was the California Restaurant Foundation founded? On 1981, we've been around for a while, so we worked with high schools. First, we started with scholarships, then we moved into the post-art program, which is, again, the high school culinary arts, training, and education program, and then about seven years ago, we launched restaurant care, focusing on the individuals and food service, getting grants from us, and then in 2021, we did the resilience fund to focus on building resilience for restaurants. Now, you move through it quickly, but let's pause a little bit. In terms of the funding for the grants that comes to the Restaurant Care Resilience Fund, explain where that funding comes from. Yes, so for four years, these grants to independent restaurants have been funded by so CalGAS, PG&E, and SDG&E, across the state, and that's what's been really exciting, is we've been able to serve our state, and in the four years, we've helped 1,603 independent restaurants with the grant. So, we're really grateful that these utilities have recognized that restaurants are so important to our neighborhoods and communities, and that they want to continue to invest in them beyond sort of how we originally kicked off this fund in the pandemic, which is about just survival and how it's really focused now on resilience and growth and strengthening businesses. And if I have this correct, Alicia, this year is the first time that in terms of a grantee potentially could be a caterer. Do I have that right? Yeah, that's right. That was a wonderful expansion of the program because commercial caterers are certainly a vital piece of the food service community, and being able to welcome them into the cohort of grant recipients was really, really wonderful. And I'm glad our funders, again, sort of recognize and listen to what the needs are of the community and then willing to continue to evolve the program. Absolutely. Now, how did, because in August, you announced this year's recipients, let's talk about the good news, how much is each grant, and this year, how many grants were awarded? Well, we awarded 278 restaurants and caterers with a $5,000 grant this year. And in the Southern California region focusing on where so CalGAS is territory is 90 restaurants and caterers who received that $5,000. Definitely impresses. Now, what can they use the money for? We have four funding categories and priorities, so they can choose, and it is up to the grantee and the applicant to select how they want to put that $5,000 to serve their business. So it can be equipment upgrades, employee retention bonuses and training, unforeseen hardship, and technology infrastructure and support. Because we know that there's a lot of deferred maintenance in the pandemic and equipment upgrades, in fact, happens to be the number one usage of the grant. And then taking care of their team is so critical and important because that's what make a restaurant come. And then technology, in order to continue to grow a business, often you need to, let's say, move from writing orders on paper tickets to having a point of sale system and other technology to improve efficiencies and help a business grow. And we've had a lot of issues with vandalism and theft with restaurants. And so we wanted to also help restaurants and caterers address those issues if that has been a hardship for them this year. Definitely all encompassing. Now, for a small independent restaurant that might have not heard about this program for 2024, for 2025, what is the application process? And then what is the criteria that these applicants are judged on? Great question. And I am just hopeful that we are funded again for 2025. And if so, it will be a similar process as this year. I am assuming we'll have the same for funding priorities. It's an online application that's really simple, up to five locations or concepts for a restaurant group under $3 million in combined annual revenue, open for one year at the time of the application and being a customer of one of our utility funders. So it's really, we try to make this as simple as possible. We also have a narrative section for the restaurant so they can tell us their story. And we love that because it helps us understand how critical these grants are and overwhelmingly the restaurants that we are able to fund are so grateful for the fact that they've been recognized and heard and that the community continues to support them and believe in them through this grant. So hopefully next summer, we'll start spring, late spring, early summer sending out notices. We'll always have a button on our website, which is cal, excuse me, restaurantscare.org, where people can sign up to get alerts. And then we'll make sure through wonderful channels like your program letting people know when that application cycle is available for 2025. We're certainly going to follow that. Now, talking about success stories in the series of grants for 2024, our next segment, we're going to be speaking with a recipient of a resilience fund grant. This being the proprietress of soulmates. What can you tell us about soulmates before we actually chat with them? Yes, I'm so glad you're going to speak with Christina. She applied for a grant to recover from unforeseen hardship. They were robbed and all of their cash was taken and their windows were broken. And she's been a passionate restaurant operator in LA area. And she's second generation American. Her concept is a reflection of her culture and who she is. And she put everything she has into this restaurant to provide incredible food for Southern California and open the restaurant of her dream. So I'm glad you'll be able to talk to her and learn a little bit more about her business. But it's really incredible. It's people like Christina that we've funded. It's a lot of family owned businesses. It's first time restaurant owners. It's people who have maybe immigrated to this country or most importantly invested everything they have to fulfill their dream of owning a restaurant. And she started with a food truck, correct? I believe so. Yeah. And she also had been involved in restaurants, I think, in Illinois. So she came with some experience in terms of what it would take. She had to bartend three jobs at night and Manny during the day to save everything. So she's worked really hard to have her own business. And I believe she also, she's a dog lover. And I believe she has three large dogs. So she is, she definitely is busy. We have been speaking. We're talking about the restaurant's care resilience fund from the California Restaurant Foundation. We've been speaking with Alicia Hirschfeld, their executive director. And when we come back, we're going to be speaking with a grant recipient. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. It's our top of the hour break. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Proters. We're going to be back on the other side. Stay with us.
