Help Ali Save Mazza

Dear Friends,

This March will mark 25 years since I opened Mazza on 15th & 15th. Amazing how fast 25 years pass when you are doing what you love to do and are surrounded by great friends like you. You have supported us through thick and thin, forgiven our shortcomings, shared our moments of success and cheered us on all along the way.

I am here, composing this letter today to ask you all for your help. Like so many restaurants in this country, COVID wreaked havoc on our operation, and it couldn’t have come for us at a more vulnerable time. We had just opened our Sandy location after spending two years and considerable resources, only to have to close it 6 months later, along with our main money maker, the 9th & 9th location. Our attempt to reopen Sandy was costly and unsuccessful. We decided to cut our losses and sell the building at a significant loss. Grasping for straws, we went for a couple of SBA loans made available for businesses. Some were forgivable, but most were not. We started with 3 restaurants and 350 seats and exited the pandemic with one small location with under 28 seats. Our remaining location, while financially healthy on its own, is now shouldering the burden for all remaining debt incurred for all 3 locations. This is an impossible situation that will continue to doom us to financial failure, leading to the closure of Mazza if we don’t do something drastic. We spent all of 2024 pursuing negotiations with the SBA to reach a workable solution to no avail. There are simply no avenues or programs to help small businesses with this growing problem.

We come to you knowing that we are not alone in our struggles, but we have truly run out of options. Our debt load, both the SBA’s and our other high-interest loans have starved us of the resources necessary for us to fix and update our aging building and equipment, make the necessary changes for a continuous operation, and, most importantly, give us the breathing room we need to so we can increase our staff’s wages to keep up with inflation as we haven’t been able to give anyone a raise for the last 4 years. They have worked hard and proudly without asking for pay increases because they know our situation, and they deserve better.

Just to be clear, Mazza’s small location has done fairly well in a very tough and uncertain business environment, thanks to your continuous support. Hopefully, we will continue for a long time (no retirement plans for this old man, unless forced to). We hope to achieve the following goals with this campaign:

-Pay off our smaller, high-interest loans and start to chip away at the big ones.

-Repair and replace aging systems and equipment, and do the necessary remodels that Mazza is sorely in need of.

-Give our employees a pay raise that would help them recoup the loss of purchasing power due to the brutal inflation of the past few years.

We shall work on achieving these goals depending on the success of our campaign. Mazza is truly dependent on this outcome for its future. We have always believed in helping the community any way we can and have worked hard to be true to this philosophy. Now we find ourselves in a deep predicament and we humbly come to our community to ask you all for help.

Thank you for lending us an ear. We hope to be worthy of your generosity.

Sincerely,

Ali and the Mazza Family