The Paycheck Protection Program has come under fire recently for providing “small business” loans to more than a dozen companies with annual revenues in the hundreds of millions during the coronavirus outbreak. One of those companies was Shake Shack, which has 189 restaurants nationwide, but as NBC News reports, on Sunday night (April 19), the burger chain announced it was returning its $10 million loan to the government.
In a letter posted to LinkedIn, Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer and CEO Randy Garutti wrote that they initially pursued the loan because the law said it was open to any restaurant location with no more than 500 employees. “The ‘PPP’ came with no user manual and it was extremely confusing,” they wrote, adding that they thought “the best chance of keeping our teams working, off the unemployment line and hiring back our furloughed and laid off employees, would be to apply now and hope things would be clarified in time.”
However, now that the $349 billion fund has already run dry, the New York-based fast food company has decided to secure outside funding and return the $10 million so that it can be distributed to other restaurants and small businesses in need. “We now know that the first phase of the PPP was underfunded, and many who need it most, haven’t gotten any assistance,” Meyer and Garutti wrote, adding that Congress must ensure that “all restaurants no matter their size have equal ability to get back on their feet and hire back their teams.”
“Our people would benefit from a $10 million PPP loan, but we’re fortunate to now have access to capital that others do not,” they wrote. “Until every restaurant that needs it has had the same opportunity to receive assistance, we’re returning ours.”
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