As many US restaurants shut their doors in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus, restaurant-industry PR veterans Helen Patrikis and Steven Hall have launched the Dining Bonds initiative, a nationwide campaign to help independent restaurants to stay afloat. The scheme is inspired by wartime savings bonds and the idea is similar: if restaurants sell a “bond” at a discounted rate today, say $75 (€68), it would be redeemable for $100 (€91) in the future.
“We realised that many of our clients are going to be deeply affected and face the potential threat of shutting down permanently due to the loss of business,” says Patrikis. “So we’ve tried to figure out how to give restaurants some much-needed cash now.” More than 100 restaurants – from New York to Los Angeles and even Jackson Hole, Wyoming – are participating in the programme, which launched on Monday, and the list is growing quickly. Hopefully the initiative will inspire other sectors to take similar measures.
Source: Monocle / Image: Shutterstock
