10/05/2024
For any small business owners, my stepbrother went through a disaster in Nashville with his restaurant. He sent this in hopes that it helps some people.
Feel free to share with anyone it could help
-Disaster Experience Sharing for Small Business-
My heart goes out to you guys during all this. Do your best to calm your mind when you can, and “zoom out” to see there are bigger forces at work to help you. You will be clean and whole again in time!
As a restaurant owner who has been through a couple things like this, I would offer the following things to consider. We have had situations where we were made whole and our business came out healthier after the trauma had passed. Some of these may seem obvious already:
-Talk to your insurance company about your policy/coverage.
-If you have one, talk to your landlord(s) about their insurance coverage.
-Talk to FEMA about available funds. They may fill in insurance gaps or provide other funds.
-Look at SBA products for disaster, and EIDL loans. I would encourage you to seriously consider getting these loans even if you don't think you need them. Sometimes the terms are very attractive, and you can always just pay them back if you don't use them.
-Sometimes FEMA and/or SBA will set up temporary offices in disaster areas.
-Talk to your Chamber of Commerce and see what they know about other funding including local/state/federal and anything else.
-Sometimes there are different ways to calculate how much relief/lending/insurance we qualified for. Our CPAs were VERY good at maximizing these, and recommend having a CPA or other accounting professional look at it.
I hope this helps, and please share with anyone who it could help.
-Austin
