[slg]

>There will be many profitable restaurant businesses who find their business lacking liquid cash over the next few months

Like I said in my earlier comment, the best hope for these businesses is to return to normal revenue numbers. They aren't going to make up for the business they are currently losing. They don't have a liquidity problem. They have a lost revenue problem. They are still accruing costs without accruing revenue. Delaying those costs doesn't fix that disconnect.

>Paying down the debt is a common business practice that people do all the time.

Taking on debt to allow you to make investments and improve future outlook is a smart business decision. Taking on debt in order to meet recurring operating costs rarely works out when there is no hope of future growth.

[smallgovt]

I think you're overestimating the magnitude of lost revenue. We're talking about 1 month of lost revenue.

A profitable restaurant's unit model might be: 10% net profit, 30% COGS, 30% fixed cost, 30% labor cost

During this one month shutdown, the restaurants won't incur labor cost or COGS. So, they're really only in the hole 30% of one month's revenue. With a little back of the envelope math, you'll see that the restaurant owner can pay back a loan for this amount by allocating 10% of their monthly profits (or 1% of monthly revenue) to loan payback.

Now, if the restaurant is NOT profitable, then we have a problem. But, they were probably going to go out of business soon anyways in that case.

[imtringued]

You're forgetting that businesses can jack up prices after a crisis. Let's say there are 10 restaurants. One of them survives because it has taken a loan and others just crumble. Suddenly all the competition is gone and people are storming your place.