Live Q&A: Restaurant Revitalization Fund for Square Food and Beverage Sellers

[Ani_]

Hi Seller Community!

I'm excited to announce the Small Business Administration has developed a partnership with Square to distribute the Restaurants Revitalization Fund (RRF) relief to the food and drink industry. The Restaurants Revitalization Fund (RRF) is part of the U.S. Government’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This plan includes a $28.6B fund for awards to eligible food and beverage business owners, administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA). 

On Thursday, April 29th at 1:30-2:30 PM PST /4:30 PM-5:30 EST, we'll host a Live Q&A with the Small Business Administration (SBA) to answer any of your questions about the application process. Please make sure to ask any questions directly on this thread below. Keep in mind, the SBA will only be addressing questions related to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF), not PPP.  

How does the application process work?

We expect to start enabling applications for the Restaurants Revitalization Fund (RRF) on Monday, May 3rd at 12:00 PM EST. The award application program is owned by the SBA, and they are finalizing the process. We know how important these funds are to you and your business, so we are working as quickly as possible to get the application ready!  

Unlike the PPP program, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund are awards and are not loans. They are not serviced as loans, and have no forgiveness component. There are no intermediary banks involved. Awards are determined by and allocated by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and not Square.

If you qualify for a Restaurant Revitalization Fund grant, you’ll have the option to apply Monday, May 3rd on Square Dashboard or through the SBA’s secure website. To help support applicants throughout the process, the SBA will offer phone and district office support.

• Call center hotline (844-279-8898): Applicants can call this number for multi-lingual application or program support. 
• SBA District Offices: Applicants can reach out to their local District Office for tailored regional SBA support.

For more information about eligibility or to start your application, please visit the SBA Portal. You can also find more information about the Restaurant Revitalization Fund on the Support Center. Let us know if you have any questions for the SBA below!

Note: The SBA has announced that they will officially stop accepting applications for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) on Monday, May 24, at 8 p.m. ET.

[Ani_]

Hi @PPastry, 

We do not yet have a firm launch date, but we will update this post once we know more from Small Business Administration. Rest assured, we'll also be communicating via email and on Square Dashboard once available. In the meantime, feel free to ask any additional questions for the SBA. They will responding to any questions directly on this post on Thursday, April 29th at 1:30-2:30 PM PST /4:30 PM-5:30 EST.

[UrbnPHX]

Applications open Monday, 5/3 at noon eastern time.  

[Ani_]

@PPastry  Great question! We will be notifying via email, social channels, on Seller Community and you’ll also see a module in your Square Dashboard.

By applying through Square, you save time completing and submitting your application with pre filled data from your Square account.While you may be able to increase the size of your award by applying via the SBA website, submitting through Square can help get your application in front of the SBA quickly - before the RRF funds run out. 

[Oldeline22]

Hi can you please explain “increase the size of your reward” comment

[PPastry]

Thank you for your response.

[louisgerbier]

Hi there,

Thanks for making this possible.
We have several Square locations that fall under a single LLC/FEIN (a seasonal location attached to a permanent restaurant has its own Square location for example). Will we be able to combine the sales of both of those locations in Square to report the gross receipts of that single LLC? 

Thank you

[chiyachai]

This is exactly our question also - we have seasonal locations and permanent location and separate full-service and quick service locations even. Will all of these be combined to one number as gross receipts. 

[Ani_]

Hi @chiyachai! You will be able to aggregate sales in Table 4 for locations using different calculations.

[RuthJMarieE]

We have a similar situation. Our PPP loans are under the C Corp FEIN on a consolidated basis with all the locations.  I would like to apply on a combined basis under that EIN

1) We have 2 of our 5 locations temporarily closed and do not have access to the historical Square sales data, is there a way to get that data?  

2) Will the Square portal allow us to combine the sales of all locations? 

 3) Will it also allow us to add Gross Receipts of 3rd parties such as GrubHub and Doordash?

[cookiedough2012]

I have a similar situation where our franchisees use the same Square account as our corporate stores and each location is a different LLC. How is that going to work? 

[Ani_]

Hi @cookiedough2012,  A restaurant with multiple locations under the same EIN must apply for all locations in one single application at this time. 

[Ani_]

Hi @louisgerbier, Yes! You will be able to combine sales across locations. You will also be able to independently indicate whether each location is seasonal.

[louisgerbier]

@Ani_ Thank you

[Hottamalecater]

Would I be able still to apply through Square even though I use mainly Paypal for transactions on pre orders?  I had only used square for onsite events and it was right when covid hit.  My onsite food truck business slowed down.  It was the catering side that helped me keep going.  Would I be able to upload 1099k?

[Ani_]

Hey @Hottamalecater! You will be able to apply through Square. Afterward you will be directed to an SBA website to finish, and you may need to upload supporting documentation like your 1099k there.

[bencrandall]

Most of these programs have required that businesses provide 2019 tax return doc's and/or show a loss in revenue from 2019 to 2020. If a business began operation after March 2020, are they able to access the funds in this program? We have no doubt been effected negatively by the pandemic but cannot use 2019 financial documents to illustrate this because we were not in existence until last April. 

Thanks!

[Gcparada]

My business also opened in 1st qtr 2020. My understanding is we use Calculation #3: total expenses from 2/15/2020 thru 3/11/2021, subtract gross revenue; that is your grant ask number. Also, submit  2020 tax return or P&Ls thru 3/2021.  

[Ani_]

Thanks for the question, @bencrandall! You will be able to apply via SBA’s portal using Table 3. For more information on application eligibility, please see sba.gov/restaurants.

[OdaChicago]

Do we have to have 2020 taxes filed in order to apply for this grant?

[Ani_]

@OdaChicago Nope! You can apply without having filed your 2020 taxes. This will be the case for many businesses.

[kimapollo]

We started using square in November 2020 so we could do online ordering. Our old POS was a pos and not on the list of vendors. Should I submit through the SBA?