To Hear Professional Business Counselors Say, “I Don't Know What Else There Is To Do,” Just Goes To Show That We Tried Everything.

I have a 2100 square foot coffee house/ entertainment space. That’s huge for a coffee house. I had a really strong relationship with the SBDC locally. I had two counselors that I had already been working with because I just opened up another business in January. So when the pandemic hit, I had immediate advice.

We applied for everything under the sun. Every local and national grant, PPP loans, we asked for donations, we tried to get people to buy gift certificates. We had some mild success, we had a couple of small $500.00 grants that came through. Enough for one person’s paycheck who works part time. Then we got PPP money for both of the businesses so at least I could ensure payment to my employees for eight weeks. But we’re getting a third of the revenue and the little successes aren’t nearly close enough to what we need in order to maintain our business.

We’ve come across a couple matching grants and we’ve applied for SBA funds. We got denied immediately for this SBA funds. And if you can’t get accepted by an augmented SBA loan, you’re not going to get accepted by your local bank. I mean, they’re way more stringent. So what happens, you know? Well, there’s an appeal process. So we’re waiting on that.

Coffee shop decorated for party

Your Voice. Your Story.

To hear professional business counselors say, “I don’t know what else there is to do,” just goes to show that we tried everything.