DC restaurateur: COVID restrictions, inauguration protection has my company ‘hanging on by a thread’

The unparalleled security restrictions in area for this week’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden coupled with the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic have remaining at least one particular Washington cafe “hanging on by a thread.”

Bob Materazzi, the proprietor of Shelly’s Back Room in close proximity to the White Residence, informed “Your Earth” host Neil Cavuto that “the streets are deserted” and “persons just you should not occur downtown.”

MATERAZZI: We’ve been in protocol just one for nearly a thirty day period now, which indicates no indoor [dining] and outdoor seating is tentative at best. It really is dependent on the temperature, dependent on the demonstrations … In 2020, we shed about 70% of our sales [compared] to 2019, and we are hanging on by a thread.

We’re acquiring some authorities dollars, but it can be not adequate, to be trustworthy with you. We’ve absent from 25 employees down to about five to 10, but we’re still shelling out rent … we’re however spending utility and [we have] no revenues coming in. So it is really a very, pretty frightening time. I am eager to wager that when this factor at last ends, a lot of the little firms in D.C. usually are not going to open up yet again.

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[With] the indoor seating shut down, people today just never arrive downtown. The streets are deserted. If you glimpse all-around us, every thing is boarded up. It’s not a extremely helpful put to arrive, and I’m not sure when all this is likely to turn all-around. Hopefully, it’s going to switch all around when the vaccinations are out, but I am not certain it is really heading to take place that immediately.