The Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. $900 billion of COVID relief includes round two of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan program.  $284 billion has been set aside for PPP-2, called … Read more >>

Crowdfunding has become a popular way of using the internet to raise small amounts of money for both profit and non-profit purposes. As its popularity has grown, it has become an effective way for entrepreneurs, including restaurants, to raise serious start-up capital. Read more >>

Despite the havoc of the pandemic, restaurant dealmakers remain positive about the future. To be sure, many of 2020’s transactions — including last month’s $11.3 billion Dunkin’ Brands acquisition by Inspire Brands—were in the works ahead of the March shutdown, easing their completion.  Read more >>

ChutneyMex made attendees hungry and captured the win, in the first competition in which teams from four leading hospitality universities worked to "Redesign the Restaurant of the Future," presented during Restaurant Finance Week November 12. Read more >>

Franchise Times Magazine and the Restaurant Finance Monitor have announced the launch of their virtual forum, Restaurant Finance Week, to be held November 9-13, 2020.  Read more >>

It has been widely reported that Inspire Brands, controlled by private equity firm, Roark Capital, is negotiating to buy Dunkin’ Brands (DNKN) for about $11 billion, including approximately $3 billion of debt. This amounts to about 22x EBITDA in calendar 2019, and the same multiple of consen… Read more >>

The pandemic has offered restaurants a much-needed reset button. For years progressive restaurateurs, especially those in fine dining, have been looking for a way to make the industry into a “real” profession, while also finding a way to even out the inequities in pay between the servers in … Read more >>

President Trump’s executive order on August 8, 2020, directing the Treasury Department to allow companies to defer an employee’s payroll taxes from September through the end of the year, came with plenty of political bluster, but no real guidelines for employers. On August 29, the Treasury D… Read more >>

Wintrust Bank CEO Ed Wehmer recalled his dad asking him in high school, “What’re you going to do for your career? Why don’t you be a CPA and then you can go around and ask any questions you want about all sorts of businesses?”  Read more >>

On August 4 the names Sandy Beall, Kevin Reddy and Doug Jacob appeared in a prospectus for a blank-check company called FAST Acquisition Corp (FAC). Known formally as a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC, FAC is among 64 other such entities filing so far this year to go public for … Read more >>

If the restaurant industry had an official sportsbook, the most popular wager would be the over-under on restaurant closures. Read more >>

Talk to any investment banker in the restaurant business these days and they'll tell you about the frequent calls they're receiving from investors looking for distressed investment opportunities. Read more >>

Expect the rising fear of a second wave, social distancing protocols and continuing economic panic to undermine consumer confidence at least until 2021, and likely longer. A presidential election this fall doesn't help matters. Read more >>

Shake Shack, Ruth's Chris and Potbelly set off a media firestorm last week when the three public restaurant companies announced they had received Paycheck Protection Loans (PPP) under the CAREs Act stimulus program for small businesses. Read more >>

Chick-fil-A reported record sales and earnings in 2019. The Atlanta-based quick serve operator, ranked last year by Franchise Times Magazine as the 12th largest franchise company in the U.S., was poised to for another strong year in 2020. However, dining room closures and restrictions to ope… Read more >>