Fox Business Correspondent:
Let’s drill down into some of the problems that restaurants are facing here now. Buddy Ford, Jr., owner of The Chateau On The Lake in New York, and Chateau Anna Maria in Florida. It’s always great to see you, Buddy. Let’s talk about the problems that restaurants are facing, because I thought that owner in the package really put it perfectly when he said it’s difficult to compete with free money.
Buddy Ford, Jr.:
Yeah. Jackie it’s difficult. Who knew the government would be our competitor as we got out of COVID. So we’ve got to get back on our feet here. We’ve got demand, which, listen, that’s the great news. The great news is customers are going out. A year ago, we had no idea if we’d even be in business. They’re out, the demand is there, now we’ve got to figure out how to staff for it. And it’s not easy.
Fox Business Correspondent:
Yeah. It’s so interesting because you’ve got two sides of this, right? You’ve got restaurant workers who desperately want to get back to work like the bartender that was saying he got a job on his second day of looking for one. Then you have certain people who are saying no, I’m going to sort of use this as a vacation period, if you will, and go back to work when I have to. But it’s the restaurants that have been hurt the hardest, right? Everybody was saying, we just want restaurants to reopen because the industry has been decimated and you look here in New York and you think about some of the iconic restaurants that won’t open again because of the pandemic, and it’s heartbreaking. You have this sort of push and pull with the employees.
Buddy Ford, Jr.:
Yeah, look, New York city… When it opens, it is going to be challenging as far as when people are comfortable going out. We’re seeing, as people get vaccinated, they’re making a reservation to come out and dine on their vaccination days. And, so, we’ve got to get off of unemployment. Unemployment’s temporary. And we could really use the help of the governors to start reinstating the job search requirement in order to get the unemployment benefit. They’re going to run out. And the jobs are there. For those of us that want to hire, we need that market, we need that industry, and we’ve got incentives going, and we’re having the same struggles. We’ve got demand and customers are coming out and supporting us. We now need to staff our establishments.
Fox Business Correspondent:
It’s so interesting to me because you place in New York and you also have a place in Florida and it’s sort of like a tale of two different states, right? Talk to me a little bit about the struggles that you’re seeing. Obviously Florida has been open for business for some time now and we still are struggling here in New York even though, as you mentioned, people are getting vaccinations and they do feel more comfortable going out. Yet, the leaders are saying, we want to really, really take this much slower than perhaps we need to.
Buddy Ford, Jr.:
Yeah, when we made the move to come to Florida back in December, we had to. When the restrictions went down to 10 o’clock at night, we had a core staff of employees that wanted to feed their families, they didn’t want to count on government assistance and unemployment, and that was all an unknown how long it would last. So we quickly adopt it, we opened a location in Florida. Praise God, it’s been going very, very well for us. And now we’re getting ready to go back to the New York location while Florida stays open. So I’ve got to bring employees that are from New York down here, back to New York with me. So I have to staff the Florida location that’s doing very well, and now figure out how to ramp up in upstate Lake George New York.
We had a great summer last year because people from the city, I won’t use the word evacuated, but they, they hurried upstate to where we are in the Adirondacks. We had a very, very successful summer. This summer looks like it’s going to be a lot more difficult because of the staffing that we’re going to have to have now in two locations. But it is a tale of two cities, we’re we’re doing very well down here, and we’re operating safely, and thank God we made that move because we were able to feed our families.
Fox Business Correspondent:
Well, you made the move to Florida as an emergency pro- [jump in audio] fascinating is how successful it’s been for you and other restaurant owners, so will it be a permanent branch of your business as we move forward?
Buddy Ford, Jr.:
Florida will be a permanent for us. In fact, we’re expanding in Florida. We’ve got several more locations we’re looking at and we are expanding. We’re hiring and we’re not saying no to any employees. So Florida will be permanent. New York will be a seasonal business for us in the summertime and in the fall, but we will grow the Chateau brand, we’re going to grow in Florida.
Fox Business Correspondent:
Buddy. We wish you the best. Always a pleasure talking to you.
Buddy Ford, Jr.:
Jackie, thank you.