Fucking despicable. I know a guy who owns and runs his own restaurant. Nothing fancy, just a nice pub grill that has a small seasonal menu. Lockdown obviously hit him hard. He ate up his savings paying his staff, didn't take a salary himself for more than a year. Luckily his wife has a decent job or they and their son would've been in even deeper shit.
He survived by adapting and offering home delivery (which he usually delivered himself), as well as learning to cook and helping out in the kitchen to replace a line cook (black) who decided to take lockdown bucks and stay at home smoking weed and playing video games. Oh and by taking on two new lines of credit and a lot more debt.
He never applied for government help because he was "too embarrassed to ask for a hand-out." He hit the bottle hard almost every night for a year, but came through it alright and says the business is doing well now. We went there for lunch a few weeks ago.
He's one of the lucky ones because his wife helped keep them above water and he owns the building the restaurant is in, but millions around the globe weren't as lucky. Fat pretends he was in the same situation as people like my friend, small business owners who were literally almost killed by government lockdowns. While he splurged his "free" money on Chinese takeaways and home gym equipment he'll never use.
I hate him so much.
