Fort Worth small businesses needed at least $65M to stay afloat when pandemic struck
As the pandemic struck North Texas, calls poured into Creme De La Creme Cake Company, a bakery in Fort Worth’s Handley neighborhood. Couples canceled weddings, parents ditched graduation plans and families abandoned Mother’s Day brunches.
After nearly 30 years as a baker, it was the strangest and hardest times owner Jamie Holder remembers.
“I came in and it was just cancellations, cancellations, cancellations, cancellations,” she said. “For us, it really was just this overwhelming like, ‘What just happened to my business?’”
In all, about 280 orders were canceled or postponed, she said. That’s more than $350,000 in revenue that disappeared or at best was delayed.
She wasn’t alone.
Based on applications to the city’s Preserve the Fort grant program, Fort Worth businesses needed about $65 million just to stay afloat. The program, which closed to applicants in October, provided Fort Worth small businesses with cash to save payrolls, pay leases or invest in supplies.
More need could exist, but the city has depleted the pot provided to small business loans through the $158 million CARES Act stimulus the city received, said economic development director Robert Sturns.
“The main goal at this point is to try and maintain as many companies and jobs as possible,” Sturns said.
When applications for the Preserve the Fort grant program closed in early October the city had funded about 1,660 business and had received $45 million in grants.
But more than 560 small businesses were still waiting for money, Sturns said, with an estimated $35 million in need.
The city hopes to allocate additional money through the remainder of its CARES Act allocation, but won’t reopen for new applications. The city council will be asked to approve $15 million more on Nov. 10.
With an Dec. 30 deadline to spend the federal CARES Act dollars, Sturns said the city decided it could take too long to vet the applications and get the money out, he said.
To qualify, Fort Worth businesses needed to have been established before 2020. Small businesses in some cases could qualify for 1.5 times the company’s pre-COVID monthly revenue, up to $150,000.
The city started with funding about $6.5 million in grants in May, but the need quickly grew. A second phase was opened in late August which grew from about $8.5 million to $30 million by Oct 18.
These funds are in addition to money the city provided for microloans in April through PeopleFund. Unlike those loans or the federal paycheck program, the Preserve the Fort grants do not have to be paid back.
Keeping Fort Worth open
The loss at Creme De La Creme left Holder and her husband scrambling, she said, first just to cover payroll for her 14 staffers.
Then to move business online and to curbside. Though she specializes in cakes for weddings and other parties, Creme De La Creme is full service bakery that did significant business with Handley residents who popped in for a brownie or croissant.
For about two months the couple didn’t take pay home from the bakery and dipped into personal savings.
In April when the federal government approved $349 billion for paycheck protection through the Small Business Administration Holder thought it would be “a godsend.” But the money quickly dried up and she was furious to read reports that large corporations, not small businesses, had received money.
Kim Slawson, owner of the Mellow Mushroom at 3455 Blue Bonnet Circle, thought she’d had seen all the ups and downs possible in the restaurant business, but COVID-19 has been whole different animal, she said.
With guidelines changing on how many people could be in a restaurant and other criteria, Slawson said there has been an added uncertainty beyond the economic downtown.
In the first few months of the pandemic, Mellow Mushroom’s sales were down 60% to 70% compared to the same time the year before, she said. Last week’s sales were down in the single digits, a huge improvement but not nearly enough to say the business is stabilizing, she said.
Slawson received more than $100,000 from Preserve the Fort, which she used to cover payroll, buy COVID-19 related supplies and cover the general cost of keeping Mellow Mushroom running. She also received money through the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
Without the Preserve the Fort grant, Slawson said she was considering filing for bankruptcy.
“We would have closed the doors for sure,” she said. “That restaurant that’s been on Blue Bonnet Circle for 15 years would have locks on the doors.”
This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
