 Alright, good afternoon everyone and welcome to our panel on people of color owned restaurants, economic relief and sustainability during the pandemic. Today we'll hear from four of our diversity and entrepreneurship fellows, Leila Dargahi, Michael Diaz, Nancy Kim and Tanvi Saran, who worked in Sacramento this summer while conducting research related to diversity and small businesses. Specifically, each of these students focus their research on restaurants and their response, excuse me, to the pandemic, economically or with their sustainability efforts. At the end of these four presentations will also hear from our community respondent, Letitia Landa of La Cocina, who's joining us virtually, who provide commentary to each student panelists at the conclusion of their presentations. My name is Noah Cole. I served as a graduate student research with the DND program this summer, and I'm really excited to hear from our fellows today because I saw firsthand this summer, how much work they put into their research. So without further ado, let me introduce our first panelist, Leila Dargahi. Leila is a global studies major in the class of 2022. This summer she interned at the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Her research topic is the changes of food packaging practices from BIPOC Oakland based restaurants as a result of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many restaurants to struggle as dining in no longer became an option, causing a reduction in customers. Restaurants were forced to quickly adjust, resulting in a huge increase in disposable packaging for meals as most meal options were only offered as takeout. Leila's research explores the various effects of increased packaging in BIPOC Oakland based restaurants as they navigate costs, government guidelines and other challenges to stay afloat. Please welcome Leila Dargahi. Hello, the research that I'm presenting on today is the mountain of waste, how small businesses have managed food packaging practices during the COVID-19 era. So the real significance that I want to highlight behind this research topic is that there is not a lot of info surrounding the increased waste as a result of COVID-19. We talk a lot about increased waste in terms of the medical industry, but the restaurant industry has been a huge polluter and has had to be because of regulations ever since the pandemic has begun. So I really want to see how sustainability and small businesses intertwine in the era of COVID, especially in a politically liberal area where there is already a lot being done environmentally. Okay, so first it is important to look at the various impacts of COVID on small businesses as they will provide us with context on their experiences from the last year and a half. So some of the things that I gathered in my data was business closures, limited hours, spending cutbacks, precaution adjustments, spending increase on PPE, decreased clientele, loan inequity and employment setbacks. So my research was focused on the Lake Merritt and downtown Oakland region. I really wanted to focus on this because it's a hub for ethnically diverse nightlife and food. I interviewed four BIPOC restaurants and then offset the research with one non-BIPOC owned restaurant that was slightly more upscale and marketed themselves as a sustainable farm to table restaurant which the others which were vastly different from the other four restaurants interviewed. Okay, so the research question that I really want to focus on was how have packaging practices changed as a result of COVID-19 in these restaurants in downtown Oakland? Have they been forced to become more environmentally wasteful as a result of COVID? And if the amount of to go and other single use packaging has increased, have these restaurants been able to financially keep up with the costs? So first let's provide, I'll provide you guys with some demographic data just to give context to the area of Oakland if some of you who are watching aren't familiar. So to provide context, Oakland is a fairly racially diverse area with 35% white residents, 23% black or African American and 27% Hispanic and Latino origin. And then in terms of housing, the average value of an owner occupied housing unit is 687,000 around around that in this is as of 2019. And then median household income is around 73,000, which is high in general, but it's good to note that that's not as high as it usually is for the bank in terms of how expensive it is to live in these areas. And then this is a census poll survey that the government gave out during the pandemic. And the question that they would ask every week is, in the last week, did this business experience a change in operating revenues? So this was taken from May 2020 to May 2021. As you can tell, there was a large decrease in revenues, especially in the beginning, but it steadily seems to drop throughout the year. But there's not really an increased, like there's not an increase in the increased revenue section. This means that businesses, yes, their revenues did increase, but not enough to offset the large amount of decrease that they had at the beginning of the pandemic. So I just wanted to provide this context just to reiterate just to give or this data sorry just to give context to this research and the findings. And this is a quote from the government data that says black owned businesses received 1.9% of PPP loans, while white owned businesses received 83%. So here are some points that I addressed in my interviews with businesses. I wanted to not just ask restaurants directly if their packaging intake increased, but I wanted to see what kinds of packaging they utilized, if their costs increased, who absorbed these costs, and if they were mandated to use a certain kind of packaging, or they just felt through community members that this is something that they should be utilizing. So the first, the first category that my questions fell under was what kind of packaging, and the second one was post COVID packaging, did the type of packaging they utilize in their restaurants change, and did the amount fluctuate. And then the third was, was there a change in practice because of legal authority or like I had mentioned before, was there a community consensus and maybe a customer base that was wanting more of these changes. And then lastly financial cost, was there been additional costs towards the new packaging practices, and do these costs trickle down to the customer or are they absorbed by the restaurant. So my first finding was that there was a heavy astronomical increase in packaging more than I think I ever thought and more than any of the restaurants really ever thought. These are the overall trends I've noticed and what a lot of the restaurants said is that the pandemic caused to go options to be the dominant option in restaurants, especially as the area had fluctuating changes in their COVID-19 protocols. So as you can tell there was a lot of like, oh, outdoor dining is available. No, it's not. Indoor dining is available. No, it's not. So these restaurants really relied on to go as a means of income. One popular soul food business proves how the catering industry produces even more packaging. So they also offer catering services and usually when you cater you get nice buffet style and you just serve as much as you want on your plate. But because of the pandemic, they had to prepackage everybody's meal beforehand and wrap it in plastic and then put it with plastic silverware. And they said that increased their costs like incredibly and their labor and it just didn't, it didn't provide the same environment as usual catering and that affected their business. And then indoor dining for some still meant that they use plastic utensils, even though it is proven that COVID doesn't spread from surfaces for the comfort of their customers. A lot of restaurants were still using wasteful and packaged plastic utensils. And then like I had mentioned, increasing costs were huge. Many, it's unsurprising that restaurants are spending more money on packaging as to go, like I said, has been the only reliable option. A couple of restaurant owners openly discussed how the increase of packaging costs have been a challenge, especially since to go orders continue even, even though the economy is open continue to be their primary source. One owner even stated that about 80% of their sales goes towards purchasing packaging now in a post COVID world post COVID. And then all of the businesses except one interviewed use a hybrid of plastic and compostable packaging or entirely use compostable packaging. And it's interesting as there are Oakland City mandates on their website that say all food vendors must use BPI certified compostable packaging. But there were some restaurants that had no idea about these mandates and said, oh, I decided to switch over to packaging because I felt that it was incredibly wasteful after COVID and I wanted to do it. And then there were some that were going, oh, I wouldn't be using compostable unless the city forced me to. So it was interesting how there's this obvious disparity where it's a very, very vague mandate and not everybody seems to know about it because they were all implementing their packaging practices for different reasons. And then a big another one was a big loss of customers. This a lot of businesses that contributed to by people not feeling comfortable to go out yet and people wanting to save money obviously as jobs insecurity has been a huge issue during the pandemic. But less buying means rising prices and restaurants expressed how the cost of the increased packaging has been passed down to the customer as they really, really cannot afford to absorb any of the costs. They're not absorbing the costs themselves, but it's now this cycle where they are now absorbing, they're not absorbing these costs because they can't, but now they're losing customers that they never really fully regained from pre pandemic because that they're because there are rising prices. So a lot of them expressed frustration for being caught in the cycle of rising prices that they needed to like increase, but people not coming in and nearly as much as they used to. So now talking about the last restaurant that I had interviewed that was the non BIPOC owned farm to table restaurant. Like the others they seem to experience an intense increase in to go packaging and packaging costs, especially as their restaurant fully transitioned to to go. So they realize that their dining options they really emphasize having like a nice indoor dining ambience and when they realize they couldn't really rely on that anymore they just decided to scratch everything and go fully to go. And as packaging costs increase the only way for them to adapt like many other restaurants in the study was to pass the cost onto the customer. However, unlike most of the BIPOC restaurants interviewed the incentive for them to utilize eco friendly packaging happened 10 years ago when the owners decided that they wanted to that would incorporate better with their mission and they really wanted to take on that environmental waste problem themselves, especially if they were going to give napkins and utensils to every customer that ordered. But one thing to note that was really interesting about this restaurant was that they were the only business to discuss the government distribution of PPP loans. The manager expressed frustration regarding how minority loans were rightfully distributed first, but they never really saw theirs until months months after, and it was never fully distributed. Like it was promised so that was something that we I think we had talked about in our in our phone call for about 10 minutes and they said that that really hindered their ability to absorb these costs, especially like we said as packaging costs increased so so much. So now I quickly want to go through some quotes that I thought stood out from my interviews with these restaurants, one of them saying I bought more individual eco friendly packaging items than I ever did before. Someone else saying COVID made me feel bad using so much plastic so it forced me to think how can I try to use as much compostable packaging as I can. And then someone else said COVID was not only bad for businesses in a sense we couldn't be inside, but also everything you bought was a more expensive, and we had to buy more of it. And then this person saying I'm using way more packaging than I used in June 2020. Right now I'm using a lot of package packaging before the pandemic we didn't. June 2020 I opened up I only had to go I only had to go so that was when the increase in packaging happened and I'm still at that level. Just to expand on this restaurant in particular they talked about how when the pandemic started their packaging went up. It went up went up went up kind of plateaued. And then even as the economy opened this last June it's still at that plateau they said even slightly higher. So for some reason there's not opening up the economy and having indoor and outdoor dining isn't causing these packaging increases to go down. And this is something that could be explored more and more in depth research, but I don't know if that's from people using to go options more as was stated. Or if restaurants have gotten in the habit of using certain packaging protocols with especially with you know short staff maybe them not having a dishwasher that is really hard for them to transition back. But it's a huge problem that obviously needs to be addressed because it's draining costs and incredibly wasteful. And this last one this person said COVID-19 increased packaging horrifyingly so in our restaurant we have to use plastic cups for sauces and dressings which I don't think they had to do before, at least in to go cups. So finally this data really proves that each restaurant shifted and dealt with their rise in food packaging in a very unique manner while also struggling with similar problems as they needed to best adjust to new COVID-19 protocols. And as each of them worked to adapt and really just survive it was interesting to see how they dealt with it so differently but also seem to have so many similarities they I think were unaware of in common. But one thing remains unchanged restaurant packaging waste remains on the rise in order to protect the environment. It definitely definitely cannot continue at this rate. Thank you. Okay, great job Leila. We'll be taking questions at the conclusion of all four presentations so just a reminder if you're at home you want to be jotting down your questions so you don't forget them at the end of these presentations. Our next panelist is Michael Diaz. He's a sociology and Chicano studies major in the class of 2023. This summer he interned in the office of Senator Monique Limon. His research topic is the disproportionate closures of Latinx owned restaurants in California. In 2020 Latinx owned businesses had their PPP loans approved nearly at nearly half the rate of white owned businesses 10% compared to 17%. The food service industry remains one of the hardest hit sectors of the pandemic, which has resulted in large decreases in revenue reduced employee hours and increased employee layoffs. Through an analysis of PPP loan district distribution by the Small Business Administration in California and interviews with Latinx restaurants owners. Michael's research highlights the barriers Latinx restaurants faced during the pandemic applying to PPP loans and receiving funding. Please welcome Michael Diaz. Today I will be going over my research project this summer and a little more in-depth understanding of a lot of the disparate inequalities that Latinx restaurant owners have faced and specifically reviewing the PPP loan application. So a little bit about the PPP program. It was the first economic relief fund that was directed towards small businesses and it was initially used as a way for small businesses to maintain their employees and continue working in order to kind of gain some sort of revenue during this difficult time. And it was a two trillion dollar budget was given to establish this fund. And so my research question was why have Latinx owned restaurants in California disproportionately closed compared to white restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. And my research methodology for my project followed a mixed methods approach. And this means that I engaged in qualitative interviews with restaurant owners, five of them in Sacramento where I was staying for my internship this summer. In addition to that I also did a qualitative data analysis of PPP loan distribution from the Small Business Administration's data set. And I will go in depth into that information. So my qualitative data, I did, I conducted five interviews with five Latinx owned restaurants in Sacramento. And so these included Tequila Museo, Maya Well, Mezcal Grill, Zocalo, Chandos Tacos, Tacoa, Tacos and Tequila. And I made sure that I interviewed sole proprietorship restaurants. Obviously, my focus wasn't to investigate the impacts on like a bigger company or companies with multiple owners. And of these five restaurants, all of the owners were either Mexican immigrants themselves or Chicanx. And so, yeah, let's see. So I have some key interview findings. So I just want to say that each restaurant that I interviewed, they had reported losing anywhere between 70 to 90% of their employee staff during the first three months of the pandemic. Ernesto Delgado, owner of Tequila Museo, Maya Well, In fact, he stated that his employee staff was reduced from 55 to just two employees during the brunt of the pandemic. And, and owners actually reported working for free or not paying themselves during the pandemic solely to save that money and put that towards their employees paychecks just so that they could keep their employees. So for a majority of the pandemic, they were just, you know, going to work for free. And also, I'm sorry. So the reason why these restaurants were so focused on maintaining their employee staff was because they still were able to adapt to the pandemic. And specifically participating in takeout ordering and local city community efforts that I will go more in depth to. But it was kind of just to at this point it was to mitigate the economic loss. And so that's why they were really focused on keeping their employees. So also one key point that that came up with my interviews is that a recent California bill from the alcohol beverage control. During that time they recently had changed some provisions to their to their restrictions, and they actually were allowing restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages to go. And so a lot of these these restaurant owners reported that these alcohol to go sales actually made a huge impact on increasing revenue during this time in and through takeout ordering. And in addition, they set up, they invested thousands of dollars. A lot of their some of their PPP funds were went directly to expanding their outdoor patios when outdoor seating was the only form of acceptable dining. And they also reported that this really helped increase the revenue as well and helped bring back some of that, that money that was lost. And I also want to touch about touch on this community program called Great Plates Delivered. So this was a specifically a Sacramento City initiative that allowed restaurants to apply for this program and those restaurants would would participate in basically making meals to go meals for the elderly and nursing homes. And one thing that I that I noticed from my interviews was that all of them stated that this even though this community initiative was eligible for all restaurants is really competitive. And only two out of every one of the restaurants that I interviewed reported applying to this program and only two of them actually were selected. And of those two, they said it made a huge impact on on their business and and in fact one of the restaurant owners that I talked to said that his restaurant was saved because of this community initiative program. And that's just highlighting, you know, the effectiveness of these kinds of programs. I also wanted to highlight this quote from Noah Hernandez, the owner of Zocalo. He said, financial literacy is the number one thing that prevents people from accessing PPP funds and financial literacy became one of the common themes in my interviews. It also just played a huge role in the ability for a lot of these owners to actually successfully complete the PPP application that I will go also more in depth. So some barriers to accessing funds like I said, these restaurant owners reported having a difficult time applying to the PPP loan application. And there's a lot of barriers. So there is barriers obviously if the owners first language is not English. There's barriers with technology use access to technology access to Wi-Fi. Enrique Godinez, owner of Mascal Grill, stated that he had to apply for his mother. Since it would have been difficult for her to apply. She was a first generation or she was a Mexican immigrant and due to language barriers and her inability to successfully navigate technology. He had to step up for her and be that person to apply. And so when talking to these restaurant owners, they stated that the application was only offered online. They had firm deadlines. A lot of documentation was required. And that a lot of the disparities that I was seeing with the access to financial assistance is contributed because of, you know, like some restaurants will not have access to financial advisors and accountants. All of the restaurant owners that I interviewed reported having access to financial accountants and financial advisors. And in fact, most of them were able to apply to this program to this application. They basically just handed their application to their accountant. They didn't have to worry about filling out and their accountant was able to apply for them. And so that made me realize that for smaller businesses, for those who are immigrant owned and lack this kind of financial literacy, if you don't have access to accountants, it's really on yourself. And that also contributes to a lot of the lack of funds and the inability to access funds. And lastly, restaurant owners also stated that they had transitioned to take out ordering. It provided short term relief, but when talking to these restaurant owners, they told me that the actual take out industry takes 30% of each sale. So they only make up, they only take home 70% of each order that they take out. So although it wasn't much, they said that it did support them financially. And in terms of qualitative data, I conducted a qualitative analysis of PPP loan distribution among these sole proprietor restaurants. I selected, I used this data tool called social explorer, which provides an interactive map of the US and you can filter data through race, income, education. It was a really great tool. So in this project, I selected 14 majority Latinx and 14 majority white congressional districts within the state, each with a majority of 50%. And I used, I used this data and I compared, I merged this data with the data that I received from the Small Business Administration and all their records of PPP disbursement within the state. I filtered the Small Business Administration's data by their NAICS code. So 72511, that is the NAICS code for restaurant establishment. So I was looking primarily at this NAICS code. I made sure that the businesses were in California, that they were sole proprietorships and by their congressional districts. Initially, I wanted to only look at this data by race because on the PPP application, they asked applicants about their race. And unfortunately, when I was looking through the data, there was a lot of people who did not answer or it was majority white and then maybe like a few Latino. But the majority did not answer. So it made it very difficult to kind of analyze that data. And so that is why I kind of shifted my focus and I switched to looking primarily in these congressional districts. Here's just some information about each district that I used. And I just really quickly, I just want to say that among these congressional districts, there is 1,738 PPP loans distributed among these sole proprietorships. Majority white congressional districts received the majority of these PPP loans. As majority white congressional districts received 909 PPP loans and majority Latinx districts received 829. So they received 80 more PPP loans. Majority white congressional districts received 52.3% of funding while majority Latinx districts received 47.7%. And although 80 more PPP loans do not seem like a big difference between these districts, white owned restaurants received nearly $1.5 million more in funding. And so, yeah, it really highlights the disparities that we've been seeing and it also contributes to the closures that we've been seeing and the lack of access to funds. And here's some of my policy recommendations. But thank you so much. Our next panelist is Nancy Kim. She's an economics and media studies major in the class of 2023. This summer, she interned at the California Department of Finance. Her research topic is on the impact of food delivery apps on minority owned restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, food delivery giants Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash and Postmates collectively raked in $5.5 billion in revenue from April to September of 2020. Meanwhile, restaurants were forced to pay exorbitant fees to use these apps. Through interviews with Black, Asian and Latinx restaurant owners, Nancy's research highlights the experience and challenges that minority restaurant owners face when forced to rely upon third party delivery platforms. Please welcome Nancy Kim. Hello, I hope everyone's having a great Friday this far. Today I'm going to be talking about the effect of third party food delivery apps on minority owned restaurants. So the research question that framed my work this summer was how did third party food delivery apps financially and operationally affect minority owned restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic? And to explain a little bit why I dived down this rabbit hole was when I'm looking at COVID-19 impacts, the hardest hit industries was the food service and accommodation industries. And additionally, very small, non-white businesses were hit hardest as well. So putting these two intersections together, I was curious to see what the impacts COVID-19 had minority owned restaurants. And concurrently, the four biggest players in the food delivery market Uber Eats, Postmates, Grubhub and DoorDash, they collectively raked in $5.5 billion in revenue from September to from April through September of 2020. This is double that of the amount of the same period the previous year, pre-pandemic. So you can really see the disparity that large corporations were really profiting off of small minority owned restaurants. And this can be partly explained through all the changing restrictions that were going on. Indoor dining was open, then it was closed, outdoor dining was available, then closed. Their limited capacity and how many people can come into a restaurant. So all these different changing factors led to a rise in food delivery services and minority restaurants then had to rely upon these platforms. So going into my research, I conducted qualitative research sitting down with four different restaurant owners across the state. This was, I found these restaurant owners through collaboration with the small business majority, which was the nonprofit that sat in our morning panel today, as well as drew some good old fashioned cold contacting, emailing and reaching out to these business owners. So the four restaurants I talked to was first a Latina owned nightclub turned takeout cocktail bar slash restaurant. So they had to put pivot completely to a new restaurant model throughout the pandemic. And this restaurant was located in Los Angeles. Secondly, I interviewed a black owned Ethiopian restaurant in Sacramento, then a Latina owned restaurant in Orange County, and then finally a black and Asian owned Caribbean restaurant in Sacramento. So sitting down and speaking with them, I largely found two main areas of financial and two main areas of operational impacts. So first looking at the financial impact, the biggest thing that every single business owner mentioned was the predatory pricing levels set by food delivery services. So all the interviewees I spoke with mentioned that they spent 20 to 30% of their gross profits towards fees. Now this not only includes delivery fees, but there's a plethora of different fees that they pay their fraud monitoring fees, credit card fees, marketing fees, the list goes on and on and on and on. And this is extremely unsustainable for our small business owners who have to pay high costs such as ingredient costs, electricity costs, as well as rent. Actually, and one interaction that I thought was super interesting was that our Latina restaurant owner in Orange County, she tried to negotiate with these corporations and she found widely different responses. So Uber Eats essentially told her that if she wanted lower fees, then she would be placed at the bottom of the search list. And meanwhile they were said, well, customers usually only pick the top five or six restaurants on those lists. So she had to eventually just cancel her subscription with Uber Eats. However, reaching out to DoorDash, she was able to negotiate a six month deal for her, not only her for her, but also for her colleagues in the restaurant or association that she was a part of. So you can really see the wildly different interactions that these small business owners had during this period. And then the second financial impact was the high inventory costs. Layla mentioned how restaurant owners had to focus on how to increase the use of takeout containers, plastic utensils. And with this, with delivery services, obviously there was a rise in takeout containers, plastic utensils. And because of the changing restrictions that were in the guidelines all the time, some of the interviews mentioned that like, oh, because we are preparing to open in person next week, maybe we can cut down on the number of takeout containers to buy. However, restrictions then change and then they had to scramble and they couldn't find the best deals for the containers they needed. Now, looking at the operational impact, managing delivery apps was extremely difficult with, along with the different COVID-19 regulations. So all the businesses had to manage utilizing different, like four different, four, five, six different delivery apps, along with changing curbside pickup orders, mass mandates, social distancing mandates, as well as training their employees so that their employees know how to guide customers. So putting this all together was a huge logistical nightmare for these small business owners who then had to also manage these delivery services, how to use the app, making sure that the food was ready and the time for the delivery service so the food can still be warm. So this was extremely, as you can imagine, very difficult for small business owners to navigate. And then the second operational impact was just the changing model of business. So because delivery services are an online app that you can use on your phone, all of the business owners then had realized that they needed to amp up their technology game as well. So they then had to develop their websites. They then had to take pictures to put on these delivery apps of their food items. And so with these, with these delivery services, they then had to stop and make sure that their food, that their menu was updated. And this was a big toll on them as well. So then in conclusion, looking at policy recommendations, I kind of established a three prong approach. So the first is collaborative policymaking. The second is grants and funding and then education. So first looking at collaborative policymaking, there is policy in place that is aiming to curb the predatory nature of delivery services. For example, individual cities and counties have placed delivery fee caps of let's say 15%. However, this is not enough, especially considering that delivery fees are not the only fees that these small businesses and restaurants are paying. And so, however, because these are businesses and business is business, they also recognize the utility of using delivery services. It's effective, it's efficient. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy to use and it brings in new customers because, you know, you can find a new restaurant that you've never seen before on DoorDash. And so what's really important then moving forward is to create mutually beneficial policy for small businesses and large corporations so they can have a more balanced relationship. And then second is education, especially with the changing nature of an online environment, online focused food experience. A lot of the small business owners said that they had a lot of difficulty finding resources on how to, you know, develop their website, how to revamp, like getting their photos. And one experience, one interaction I had was super interesting. She told me that because she has a master's degree, she's a millennial and she knows how to use technology and even with all these advantages, she still had a super hard time trying to navigate COVID-19. But she noticed that the elderly Latinx couple across the street from her, they had, they struggled so much more. So then in education, accessibility is super important, making sure that all age groups in multiple languages that everyone can become educated and find the resources they need. Lastly is providing ample grants and funding. I know this is a priority of Governor Newsom's administration as well as the Office of the Small Business Advocate to provide grant funding for our small restaurant owners. However, with the changing nature of business, like I mentioned, all the business owners I spoke with, they all recognize that we are not going to go back to the pre-pandemic state. Online delivery services, even if there is a decrease and more people will be going in person to dine, a lot of people are still going to use delivery services. So then a lot of them mentioned that their goal was to then develop their own app as well as try to internalize a delivery service program where they're not losing 30% of their gross profits. So if that's the case, then grants and funding are key so that they have the financial capital to build out these goals. And so in conclusion, small restaurants, minority owned restaurants, they really enrich in our communities. They really give us a diverse experience. I mean, the food is great too, but you also get to meet a lot of different people and learn about different cultures as well. And so moving forward, we do have a responsibility to make sure that we protect these businesses from the predatory nature of these large technology companies. Thank you. Our final panelist is Tanvi Saran. She's a political science and media studies major in the class of 2022. This summer, she interned in the governor's office of planning and research and the strategic growth council. Her research topic is on the Bay Area BIPOC owned businesses and the pursuit of health care and ethics. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a subset of the American population that was particularly vulnerable to not only the health effects of the virus, but also the economic and social effects of the virus. With an understanding of what these vulnerable populations look like, Tanvi's research explores how BIPOC small businesses are able to withstand the pandemic and what factors they exhibit that allowed for their survival or what factors led to their closure. Please welcome Tanvi Saran. Good afternoon, everybody, and to my peers and people online. Okay. My op-ed is called BIPOC Small Businesses Surviving and Sacrifice. Surviving and Sacrifice will better understand by the end of this. Okay. So I first wanted to start with like an explanation of my research question and being given the opportunity to do this research was a really interesting journey. So I began with considering prior knowledge, exploring what individuals in California were predisposed to adverse effects caused by COVID-19. And this was colored by previous research I had done about which populations in California and in particular counties were vulnerable to COVID-19. And so this led me to my second step, which was how can we translate this to businesses and small businesses and particularly BIPOC businesses? And so I ended up with how do barrier businesses survive a pandemic? A broad question, but nonetheless extremely important. And so first I want to provide a picture of what a vulnerable person looks like and what constitutes a vulnerable person. And this again, colored by prior research. And what we found over eight weeks of research was that a vulnerable person is probably a person of color or minority status. A vulnerable person may be impoverished or in an impoverished area. A vulnerable person might be from Imperial County or in any other predominantly Latino county in California. A vulnerable person might have low education attainment. A vulnerable person might be food insecure. A vulnerable person might live in an area with low healthcare access. And lastly, they might be incarcerated or confined. So we have an understanding of what a vulnerable person looks like and what we could do with this information is also apply that to what a vulnerable business may look like. So with my research design, I wanted to focus on the barrier. It's where I'm from personally connected to it. And I had three case studies. One of them is prior to the pandemic, which will set the stage for the next two case studies. All case studies were researched online. They're all BIPOC small businesses. We have a bakery, a restaurant and a shop. And let's first start with Mission Pi, which I am personally connected to. I love this place. Really good pie. And so their mission statement, which is up there, is to produce high quality food from high quality ethically sourced ingredients, price at a level people in the neighborhood could afford. And they wanted to treat their staff well. And they were in the mission in San Francisco. And so they had 25 employees, a $15 to $20 wage range and a 401k match. And at this very moment, I implore you to think about other businesses that do this. Can you think of any business that provides this for their employees? This was the first time I ever heard of a small business doing that. And then sadly, after 12 years of business, the bakery closed in 2017 prior to the pandemic, which I want to underscore. And it has now been filled with a new shop. And so this kind of underscores how a small business in San Francisco prior to the pandemic couldn't even survive. There was already indicators of what a vulnerable business looks like. And I also wanted to insert some nice photos of me enjoying their pie back in 2017. It was a great place. So we move on to Three Brothers Tacos, which is in East Palo Alto, so we're moving south. It is minority owned and they had been in business for 35 years. My other peers already mentioned this, the 30% fee charge on customers that businesses assume when they use apps like Uber Eats, Grab Hub, DoorDash, those delivery services. So Three Brothers Tacos had to change their model. They had price increases on their menu, which affected their customer base. They used Grab Hub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats to adjust to the pandemic. And this posed new challenges, including that 30%. So they opted for curbside pickups, which is an invention of COVID-19. So we move on. Then we have Asia Star Fantasy, which had food, a hybrid shop essentially. And like many other places in Chinatown, it experienced massive shifts in income and customer base. Also dealt with a pretty intense racialized experience, nonetheless. So they experienced at 80% degrees in sales. And during the pandemic, Asia Star Fantasy went from being open to being closed to being open to being closed as state regulations changed. Now the shop is closed. And so this leads me into my next point, which is the story of Chinatown. And this was also underscored by a prior presentation that the story of Chinatown to Oakland, San Francisco is particularly interesting considering COVID-19 was associated with the Asian identity. And so you saw an influx of hate crimes and racism towards the Asian subject. And so you saw headline after headline after headline after headline after headline after headline after headline about how these Asian businesses are barely surviving. This posed new challenges. It also poses new avenues of research which several people are tackling. So inventions of COVID-19. This is something that I found particularly interesting about my research is how can you qualify these new categories? How businesses had to adapt to the new economic situation posed by COVID-19? And for one, parklets and takeout. You saw this architectural change. Cities were changing. There was new spaces made, new regulations. Some parklets were really nice. It was a new architectural phenomenon. It was amazing. It also had takeout, curbside pickup, a lot of plexiglass, a lot of new materials, a completely new design of what a restaurant can look like. A new dining experience. Which changes the restaurant industry. State intervention. You saw the state step up. We talked about PPP loans. My peers talked about that. Loans and grants. About this, which I would like to relate back to my case studies, is businesses like Mission Pi, businesses like Three Brothers Tacos, Asia Star Fantasy, and Chinatown in general, are also places that may experience low education attainment. Thus, navigating PPP loans, the Small Business Advocates Office under Gavin Newsom, getting help is difficult. It's a bureaucracy that you have to cut through and not everyone's equipped to handle that. And perhaps to me, the most important is an understanding of the problem. I saw this with an understanding of a vulnerable population. Understanding that and being able to see that provides clarity on where remedy should go. And to say, same could be said about small businesses, is that an understanding of problem is where it allows one to provide remedy. So let me just underline that. So I really want to take this idea of like understanding a problem, which I talk about, which my peers talk about and propose policy reform for it as well. Here's what I think. There needs to be prevention, prevention, prevention, prevention from the get go. What Mission Pi teaches me, especially as someone who is connected to it, is that small businesses cannot protect their employees with 401K benefits, health care, prior to even the pandemic having come. So a lot of these businesses didn't even have a chance. So some potential avenues of remedy, state led efforts, making navigating the bureaucracy a lot easier is necessary. So more widely accessible resources, loans and grants should be easily attainable. Maybe that involves people being on the ground, talking to these business owners. Protection of vulnerable populations. Vulnerable businesses are most likely run by vulnerable people, vulnerable populations. There's remedy to be sought after there. And then broader healthcare access, a really difficult topic, but COVID-19 has again brought that to the surface and access to infrastructural resources. And with that, I'd like to thank you. I would like to thank my peers, Christine, the COUNSAC program. It's been the story of my pandemic experience. I've been in this for two years, and it's been wonderful. And I will take this with me for a really long time. Thank you so much. All right, let's give a round of applause to all our fellows who presented today. Layla, Tanvi, Michael and Nancy. All right, next we'll be hearing from our community respondent, Letitia Landa, who will provide her feedback on, excuse me, her response to our fellow's research. She'll also answer, ask questions to our panelists before we open up our Q&A. Letitia is a, oh yes, please, we will welcome our panelists up to the front of the room. And as they work their way up, I'll give a little background on Letitia, our guest for today. She's the deputy director at La Cocina. She learned about La Cocina by reading a newspaper article about El Rache Loco when she was a college student in anthropology at Harvard. She joined La Cocina in early 2008 as a third staff member throughout her career at La Cocina. Letitia has relied on her experiences being the daughter of Mexican immigrants who moved to the US and started a business to fuel her strong belief that business ownership can be transformative, particularly for women, immigrants and people of color. She's passionate about food and cooking, particularly the way sharing food transmits memory. Fluent in Spanish and French, Letitia has loved learning from the 100 plus entrepreneurs she's worked with about food traditions from all over the world. Now deputy director at La Cocina, Letitia has worn almost every hat at the organization over the last decade, writing grants, developing the incubator program, working directly with business owners, managing volunteers, and consulting with other incubators. Had to catch a breath between those so much work. Letitia has provided vision and strategy for the organization's tremendous growth, which has led to the organization's international recognition. One of her favorite recent projects has been co-authoring We Are La Cocina, a cookbook published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Please welcome Letitia Landa. Hey everybody. Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be here and you know even though this is what I have been living and breathing for the last 19 months, I learned some things which has always, you know, means you guys did your job as well so thank you. I guess maybe I'll just start off by saying generally I think every one of you could have used the term systemic racism and kind of brought that home a little bit more. I think that, you know, at least to me like that's what all of your presentations were about can be hard to say those words that can be hard to kind of own them but COVID-19, I mean systemic racism has always been a huge issue in the United States and COVID-19 has just made it so much worse and I think so much more obvious and so I guess I would just encourage all of you to say it and to really own it and to really be a little bit more forthcoming with what your research means about our country and about our government and our systems. So I just wanted to kind of maybe preface all of my kind of questions and things with that big picture thought. And I don't know what's the best way to know I should I just go kind of person by person. Yeah going one by one is great. Okay, perfect. So maybe Leila I'll just start with you I have my notes but I guess. Firstly I just wanted to say like thank you for really digging into this I mean it's it's obvious you know I think to everybody. But without you know the data to really back up how incredibly huge this problem is of this waste I think you know it's going to be harder to make changes. One of the things that you said which I maybe just have a question about was something like one of the business owners said that 80% of their expenses were going to packaging that that like blew my mind I don't know if if that was like. Does that include food and labor and everything like I just. Anyway maybe diving into that more or really understanding that because that's crazy. Yeah, I don't know this Oh, so that person in particular that said that had transition to eco friendly packaging and a common theme is like eco friendly packaging is increasingly more expensive. And I think in addition to their revenues in sales already decreasing significantly. Unfortunately, it wasn't a surprise in like the context they gave me that 80% of those sales were going to packaging. They, I think a lot I think they had been on loans and that was maybe a reason they were able to pay employees and kind of utilize those loans for other costs, but they kind of emphasize to me that yeah I had. It's been it's taken up so much money. And so, unfortunately, 80% was their estimate they could give me, but I think it gives a good inclination and good range as to just how expensive these restaurants are how expensive this packaging is and how big of a hit these restaurants are taking. Absolutely. I guess I just, you know as I think about kind of implications or if you have you know plans for more research I mean one of the questions that I thought a lot about as you were talking is, what's the government's role versus just, you know, capitalism. Unfortunately, you know all of these compostable packaging makers had a huge spike in demand and so, and also, you know, their supply chains were screwed up by coven so you can sort of understand why they had to raise their prices. But is there an opportunity for, you know, maybe getting a little radical like could the government subsidize. Compostable packaging particularly for businesses that were hardest hit by coven or for businesses owned by people of color like, are there some sort of creative out of the box ways of thinking about how do you a get people to shift from like the styrofoam and plastic to plastic because you're 100% right it's your you have to in the Bay Area but there's so many businesses that don't follow that both because they don't know about it and also because the cost. So can you how do you, you know for a long time, they like subsidized, I don't know, all sorts of terrible things for the world gas like corn and you know like can we change that and shift it to subsidizing the things that are more impactful, particularly how much take out has increased. I don't know those were some some of the things that sort of came to my mind. I guess one of the things I would maybe ask you to think about is like, what can we do as consumers because I think that there there is some, you know, of course there's a role for government and all of us and this actually may be a question for a lot of you guys is like is there a public education component. You know, of people, you know when they call in their order saying oh this is for my house I don't need forks and napkins. I just need the food. I mean there might be little things like that that are kind of like low hanging fruit that we all as conscious customers could do to sort of shift but I don't know if you thought about that or if you spoke to people about that kind of like is there anything that can be done. So there's actually a huge portion that can be done on the consumer side. Right now I know California government is there's a there's a bill in the process of kind of having this mandate where you kind of like the straw reach to ask for a plastic straw and they're just getting one, they're trying to do that with other plastic packaging. And I think that's a huge part is the consumer restaurants are scared to not just automatically include utensils and automatically include napkins and things because of negative feedback and they're so reliant on whatever customer base they already have. They don't want to give that up. So I think a huge part is to tell them oh I don't need this and to voice that not just asking you know what I'd be like oh I'm eating at home I don't need this and I think if more of the community did that. And it was more consistent I think that they would then feel more comfortable to maybe not have to buy as much and then give it on like an ask only basis, because right now a lot of them express like some people were upset that they transitioned to compostable and weren't putting their soup and styrofoam, or in plastic because they had gotten used to that and so it made the businesses feel insecure about their decisions and so I think they really rely on customers and their government being the first one in terms of their mandates but they really rely on customer opinion as well into kind of guide them in what direction they should be taking. I hope that answers your question. Yeah it does just I mean just thanks to think about I think for all of us and I mean I work with lots of small businesses so I can pass this past this information along. Because of time I'm going to move on to Michael. I, one thing that just stood out to me that I'm curious about and you know I appreciate you sort of delineating between people who are immigrants, immigrant owners and like and owners who are filling these things out did you come across conversations around the PPP and immigration status and sort of who was even eligible for this funding. Yeah, so when talking with the restaurant owners. I found out that you have to, in order to apply for the PPP program. You have to be a US citizen. So, obviously undocumented immigrants who could have could be owners of a restaurant. They're automatically uneligible to apply. And yeah I think, I think there was just a lot more barriers with immigration status and in regards to like immigrants, like immigrants for sure have definitely more barriers when it comes to language and like access to technology that's why a lot of these people had their are like a lot of these owners who were immigrants they had their accountants fill out their applications or you know someone with the proper financial literacy. And that's also something that I feel like contributed to the closures, like access to the accountants. A lot of the restaurant owners said that that like the government isn't sending out these resources like they have to go out and find them. So, that's why I also like CDFI and SBDC programs that were specifically with the community development was so crucial during this time because they all stated that if it wasn't for these programs and these community development development initiatives. They wouldn't have like the proper information the proper details on like when the application was due, what is needed. And they were all thankful that they had their support during this time. And I think, you know, one of the things that your presentation made me think about I mean I like really lived everything that you were talking about because you know we were on the phone and trying to figure out, you know getting congressional lobbyists to like talk through who was eligible and who wasn't and just the unfairness of it all because the PDPs came out during the Trump administration, just as a reminder to everybody that that happened it was not that long ago. That's why it was such a disaster. In part, but I, I think one of the questions that I would maybe have is like, there did seem to be, there was, especially after the administration shifted a focus on we want to get this to Spanish speakers we want to get this to minorities we want to get this you know you want to get this, all of you right like the, the, we were hearing from the government that that there was a priority and all of these things. But the difference between the government saying that it's a priority and actually the people who they're trying to prioritize knowing about it is enormous. Like, it's, it's tragic, right that the intentions maybe are good but then the implementation is so far off of what it needs to be. And so I'm just curious, like, for example, for the two businesses that were Spanish speaking that ended up in the great plates program like, we're able to dig into what what what made them apply like, was it in Spanish was it word of mouth like, I think, you know, all of us who are in this work it's like also trying to figure out what works, because so much of it doesn't work and so that would maybe be a question for you is like, what was the outreach, how did the CDF is going to reach in a way that made it work. How did, you know, for all of you right like how did the compostable packaging people reach out in a way that actually reached the intended audience like, and you don't have to answer this right now but just something to think about like what are the actual things that work the messages that work the methods that work, because I think sometimes especially in California we're lucky to live in a sanctuary state we're lucky to live in a place where the intention is there to reach these communities and to have these loans reach rural areas, etc. But they don't. And so, when they do what what happened, what magical thing happened and can we learn from that and apply it to other places. Yeah, I can speak on this a little bit. So, I think one of the biggest game changers in the interviews that I conducted was the role the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce played in relaying these messages. So, I, the Vice President of the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, Juan Novello, I worked in close contact with him this summer he was actually the one who directed me to, or put me in contact with the restaurant owners that I interviewed, just because I worked closely with them with economic development within the city. So, he was explaining to me and the restaurant owners as well they were saying that the Chamber of Commerce, they, they retain all the information and they receive all the messaging from the business administration, and they basically relay that messages, or all those messages, all their information to like loan applications to the restaurants they close they work closely and contact with so all the restaurants that participate in CDFI programs and they have some sort of like email messaging board and those restaurant owners are included in all the emails the Chamber of Commerce sends out. And so a lot of the restaurant owners were able to apply and were given all these details because the Chamber of Commerce acts almost as a middleman as a messenger to these small businesses and so that I think contributed to like the success and their ability to actually apply. That's great. Thank you. Let's get to know. That wasn't the case here. Nancy, just to keep moving us along from a time perspective. I first just wanted to say how sickening it is to hear those numbers again, you know, 5.5 billion to these companies that are already very, very rich, while, you know, a huge percentage of small businesses went completely out of business and you know the additional people who are now struggling with food insecurity and everything else just sort of like Royals my stomach and I'm glad you said it over and over again because I feel like it's important for people to know that. One of the questions that I had and I'm wondering if maybe having a more specific number around it would would benefit, you know, people as they're thinking about how to get, you know, businesses that are prepared to be able to kind of exist in this new economy is the cost of updating the technology that people went through so you mentioned, you know, the web the photos like the menus and obviously there's a lot of time spent, but you know what was that what is the actual cost for businesses to do those kinds of updates in order to then be able to really be competitive on these platforms. That was just one kind of question I don't know if you ever asked about price like cost to their business to just get up to snuff. Yeah, that's a really good question. I didn't get to hear any exact prices, but I know they told me like they, some of them were trying to use their resources being like their networks of friends be like, Hey, like you take good photos like can you take this. Some of them were using like their cell phones like there was a wide range of experiences. So I think like regarding prices it was just what they could scrounge up who they had a network for, especially for the nightclub owner who obviously couldn't open her nightclubs and she had to convert into a restaurant. She mentioned how the lack of resources and developing the menu to make a website because she didn't know like where the resources were. So she had to contact her friends who were fellow restaurant owners to be like how do you like, where do you get your takeout containers from like things like that. And so she did site a lack of resources in general which is I think very unfortunate. Yeah, one of the things that I thought was kind of cool was when you mentioned that one of the people who figured this out like the discount on door dash then shared it with all of you know her other fellow restaurant friends or people who are in that group and I just wanted to highlight that because I saw that over and over again through the pandemic like I think people often think of small business owners as being really competitive with each other but I actually feel like because everybody is sort of struggling and in the same level I think there is a lot of collaboration and cooperation that happens, and it's maybe some food for thought or something to think about you know I was. I feel like as you were talking, and I, you know you think about how huge delivery is now for people pandemic like we're not going back to normal to how it was before necessarily. So you know delivery is like it's a necessary evil. And so in my mind and sort of as we think about it is like how do you make that evil less evil. You know, capping at 15% is one way to do it but you know thinking about alternatives real, real actual alternatives to Uber Eats and door dash different models right so just as an example La Cocina runs a municipal marketplace in San Francisco. And so we've partnered with this particular delivery organization that pays all of their drivers a living wage and that is just like trying to you know pilot this completely different way of doing delivery. And so I think, you know, supporting and funding these little alternatives that have come up. I don't think that it's ever going to really be able to like when you completely off of Uber Eats or door dash although maybe. But just to give that a chance, you know, and maybe for the government like I said to subsidize like, you know, Uber and all these people get so many tax breaks and so many other other things the reason why they're able to grow so big. You know, there's other there's alternative means of, you know, getting food from restaurants into people's hands and how can we as customers support that how could the government support that. I wanted to kind of put that out there like all the different ways that we can make them less evil I think will really count. And you mentioned that some of the people are developing their own apps but I'm curious if any of them are just hiring delivery drivers like was that something that you started to see. And actually one of the delivery, not delivery on it one of the Russian owners I spoke with she said that she made her own like delivery service, she hired delivery like workers. But she said that it was so difficult like she didn't realize how difficult it would be to like logistically okay and I'm getting an order from here location one location to location three. I'm not sure the food is still relatively hot it goes in a relatively quick time, and just because of all those logistics like developing she found it impossible to navigate that. And so that's why she said that she turned to their delivery platforms despite the high cost, because they have internalized those routes, and also some of the different restaurant owner she did develop her own in house app for her but she still partnered with door dash for the delivery portion. It was really funny because she partnered with a separate organization to develop the app, because they had a mission to like develop apps for like small minority own businesses, but the delivery delivery portion still relied on door dash. So it's a very interesting dynamic there will despite trying to find alternatives these large corporations are just, you can just see them there, they're pervasive so it's and they have a monopoly. So it's very difficult to see how you know what alternatives there can be, but yes. Yeah. Great well thank you and just lastly Tempe I wanted to say, I also love and this mission by law was seen as offices around the corner, and I had many a coffee meeting and slices of pie there. One of the questions I have for you as you said oh you know they close because it's impossible to run a small business in San Francisco I'm curious if you if you actually dug into the why because they're you know they're clearly are many businesses that are still up and running and thriving. Whether it was particularly their model particularly what they were paying their employees are kind of the specific why on them, and then what you can learn from that. As you think about your other case studies. I love this question. So, what's so interesting about mission pie is that the two women that run it. We're not willing to give up their mission. Funny enough semantics. They did not want to give up the 401k, the wage, the employee benefits and the atmosphere. So they they looked into moving to Oakland to other parts of the East Bay, where supposedly rent would be cheaper. They also looked into just becoming solely a take out service and a delivery service. And none of those options were viable, whilst also maintaining their original mission statement of having like a really great employee working environment. They consulted all these options and none of them had worked. And so their ultimate decision was to shut down. Yeah, and I find that really interesting, especially like when you take into consideration like Nancy's research, or Layla's research and Michael's like all of this. And you try and compile this and wonder like, what does it take for a restaurant to package their food for a restaurant to use these apps I mean it. You realize that to a certain extent, you can negate that there's there's a odds are stacked up against these small businesses. There's massive stakeholders, you have these large apps you have packaging you have like the government the state. These stakeholders who have funnel businesses down a specific route. And like we discussed, we discussed these issues for able to see that this we can pinpoint this is the issue. And this is what's causing it. But when you have stakeholders that are billion dollar companies, or you have stakeholders like landlords, or something like that. It's extremely hard to combat that and also thrive. Totally. And I guess one of the things I maybe I would, I would challenge you and I mean I think sometimes doing really like broad research can be really helpful. But I also feel like it can be hard to actually glean, like workable insights, unless you compare apples to apples. So I, you know it would have been interesting maybe to think about other businesses that pay their employees living wages. So how have they done over coven what have they done differently to mission pie. Yeah, what's working what's not working because I do think that there's like sort of a handful or enough of them that you could look at. Just, you know, if you think about, you know, going deeper or really thinking about like what you were talking about in terms of prevention. You know, at least from like local scene this perspective, we think there is a way to pay employees really well and to thrive. It's challenging. But there are companies that you can look at and learn from and you know reams is one example she moved into the mission high space and she has a lot of similar ideals and you know she even moved into a bigger space in Oakland and and has a lot of support. So how she's able to do it is going back to what Michael was saying around great plates. And she does World Central Kitchen so these other programs that are not just relying on customers so just I maybe to end on a hopeful note because I'm looking at the time and I'm actually going to have to go. But, you know, I do, even though it's really hard, even though things have totally sucked. I, I don't think that every single small business small restaurant in America is going to close like I think that there are going to be ways for us to keep them going and you know as a part of that work everybody's, you know, making choices about where to eat is a is a part of what makes that possible. And then research like what you guys are doing and really pushing for different policies will be part of it too so I'm really honored to have been a part of this I hope it was helpful. I think, you know, Noah has my email and if you guys have any further questions or want to talk further like definitely please let me know. Sorry that we went a little bit over time. Let's hear one last time for our panelists in our community responding with a show and