Nebraska restaurants dying ‘from a thousand cuts’ wait for winter, pandemic to thaw

(The Center Square) – Nebraska restaurant owners long for spring, when both the weather and hopefully the COVID-19 pandemic will thaw, said Zoe Olson, executive director of the Nebraska Restaurant Association.

“In the last week and a half, we’ve probably had 25 inches of snow,” she told The Center Square.

Restaurants were not expecting much of a recovery in the winter anyway from the rough year they had in 2020, Olson said.

One bright spot on the horizon, however, is proposed state legislation that would extend a waiver of state law prohibiting carryout cocktails.

The bill is pending in the Nebraska legislature.

“My guess is that it is going to pass,” Olson said. “The head of the Liquor Control Commission even came out in support, which kind of surprised me. We had expected him to be neutral.”

The bill will help restaurants, Olson said.

“It’s going to be a long recovery from the pandemic, we know that,” she said. “We’re putting in as many tools as we can to help. This has been helping restaurants survive.”

The restaurant industry has been “dying a death from a thousand cuts,” Olson said. “There’s no one thing that is going to make it better. We are trying to repair it, I guess, with a thousand Bandaids.”

January’s second round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program also helped, she said.

“It’s just another part that can help people hold on,” Olson said. “When you put together some PPP with people still getting carryout food and remembering how important restaurants are to the economy, that will save the majority of us.”

Some restaurants have or will still close, she said.

“Winter can be hard here,” Olson said. “But we did find out that the NCAA said the entire national volleyball championship will be in Omaha, not just the Final Four. That’s going to be helpful.”

Although attendance at the competitions will be limited because of COVID-19, family members of athletes will still be able to attend, Olson said.

The COVID-19 vaccination program is also going well in Nebraska, she added.

“That is going to be big,” she said. “Once that happens, we believe people will start feeling like they can go out again and consumer confidence should go up.”

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