Garrido’s Bistro Emergency Relief Fund
Donation protected
Hey there!
Today we want to talk to you about our family, our Garrido’s family, the people we used to share most of our days with before this pandemic hit Michigan. They are wonderful, extraordinary people, that love the hard-work of the restaurant business.
They share with us all the good and difficult days, they are with us when we achieve excellence and they are the team we rely on when it gets tough.
They are the author of the witty comment that made you smile on your last visit, the eyes that made sure your food looked amazing before it came out to the table, the hands that set so carefully your extreme shake at the table when you child wasn’t looking to create the perfect surprise.
When we opened Garrido’s, we turned a hut into a home. A home for our Garrido’s family to thrive. We made sure they could bring home as great a meal as our customers, that they stayed healthy, that they had job security and enough hours to support their families and enjoy their jobs. Because we don’t see it as a job, this is our life and we wanted them to see it that way too, because that always creates the hospitality atmosphere for our customers.
We run Garrido’s like our family, like our home. We are Christians and we try to follow Jesus in loving others like ourselves and sacrifice for them, and that is what we have done for our Garrido’s family so far. It has not been easy, but it is the right thing to do. We cannot afford their wages until business is back to normal, and the unemployment insurance will take some weeks before it starts paying them, and some of them were denied because they have not been with us long enough. We have stayed in touch with them and provided meals for them, and prayed for them and their families constantly.
Today we are reaching out to you because we are doing everything in our power to keep Garrido’s going:
- Redid our entire operation to transform from a dine-in to a take-out restaurant overnight
- Launched online ordering platform
- Teamed up with Grace Community Church for a “Pay It Forward” Campaign to provide complimentary meals to those in need, quarantined, and working the frontline
- Applied for a Federal SBA Loan (wait at least 8 weeks for review)
- Applied to several private cash advance loans (all denied because of being a restaurant is too high-risk at the moment)
- All the staff applied for unemployment, but most of them were denied for different reasons
- Negotiated to defer payment with suppliers
The generosity of our customers (some of them experiencing hardships themselves) and the partnership with Grace Community Church has allowed us to keep going one more week, while blessing our community with complementary meals, but that only covered the essential operational costs, we are not able to provide for our staff the way they deserve, or keep going past this week.
Please, if you can, help our Garrido’s family keep going two additional weeks through this pandemic. All donations will go first to support our staff (2 weeks pay) and any balance afterwards will go to our “Pay It Forward” Campaign so we can continue to bless as we are being blessed.
May the Lord bless you for your help.
#SmallBusinessRelief
Today we want to talk to you about our family, our Garrido’s family, the people we used to share most of our days with before this pandemic hit Michigan. They are wonderful, extraordinary people, that love the hard-work of the restaurant business.
They share with us all the good and difficult days, they are with us when we achieve excellence and they are the team we rely on when it gets tough.
They are the author of the witty comment that made you smile on your last visit, the eyes that made sure your food looked amazing before it came out to the table, the hands that set so carefully your extreme shake at the table when you child wasn’t looking to create the perfect surprise.
When we opened Garrido’s, we turned a hut into a home. A home for our Garrido’s family to thrive. We made sure they could bring home as great a meal as our customers, that they stayed healthy, that they had job security and enough hours to support their families and enjoy their jobs. Because we don’t see it as a job, this is our life and we wanted them to see it that way too, because that always creates the hospitality atmosphere for our customers.
We run Garrido’s like our family, like our home. We are Christians and we try to follow Jesus in loving others like ourselves and sacrifice for them, and that is what we have done for our Garrido’s family so far. It has not been easy, but it is the right thing to do. We cannot afford their wages until business is back to normal, and the unemployment insurance will take some weeks before it starts paying them, and some of them were denied because they have not been with us long enough. We have stayed in touch with them and provided meals for them, and prayed for them and their families constantly.
Today we are reaching out to you because we are doing everything in our power to keep Garrido’s going:
- Redid our entire operation to transform from a dine-in to a take-out restaurant overnight
- Launched online ordering platform
- Teamed up with Grace Community Church for a “Pay It Forward” Campaign to provide complimentary meals to those in need, quarantined, and working the frontline
- Applied for a Federal SBA Loan (wait at least 8 weeks for review)
- Applied to several private cash advance loans (all denied because of being a restaurant is too high-risk at the moment)
- All the staff applied for unemployment, but most of them were denied for different reasons
- Negotiated to defer payment with suppliers
The generosity of our customers (some of them experiencing hardships themselves) and the partnership with Grace Community Church has allowed us to keep going one more week, while blessing our community with complementary meals, but that only covered the essential operational costs, we are not able to provide for our staff the way they deserve, or keep going past this week.
Please, if you can, help our Garrido’s family keep going two additional weeks through this pandemic. All donations will go first to support our staff (2 weeks pay) and any balance afterwards will go to our “Pay It Forward” Campaign so we can continue to bless as we are being blessed.
May the Lord bless you for your help.
#SmallBusinessRelief
Fundraising team: Fundraising team (2)
Vanessa Gonzalez
Organizer
Grosse Pointe Farms, MI
Christopher Garrido
Team member