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Letter: Restaurants, small businesses need our support

We have all faced challenges in 2020 all across America; however, I feel that small businesses have dealt with insurmountable obstacles, even after following all the rules, rules that change daily and oftentimes, for nonsensical reasons.

Routt County is no different. Our restaurants and small businesses are facing dire decisions — give up and quit or fight on only to increase their debt load. They need our help. As a volunteer for many different nonprofits over the years, I have hit up many restaurants and small businesses for gift cards or donations, and I beseech Routt County residents to give back now.

These business owners gave and gave. The request for donations was a daily occurrence and even multiple times a day. Most of the time, these small businesses did what they could. You would see that represented in silent auctions with items or gift cards from their businesses.



It is now our turn to have their back. They are facing notes (if they bought the business in the last several years), rent or mortgages and pretty much zero income. They have had to let a good percentage of their employees go and are working with minimal staff.

Having a “to-go“ business works great if you are a food truck with low overhead. However, with brick and mortar, “to go” only gets you so far. These businesses can’t call their landlords or mortgage company and state that the beneficent, leviathan government will save the day at some point in the future.



If I hear “we are all in this together” one more time, I am going to scream. I would truly love to see us “all in this together” — please support our local restaurants in a monumental four- or five-digit way.

Colorado Gives Day is next week, and all these nonprofits will be awarded large sums of money. Good for them. How about our restaurants get a chunk of the pie? If they can’t, please donate big to them or the only dining options in the future will be gas station sushi. Good luck with that.

Sincerely,

Laura Case

Steamboat Springs


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