COVID-19 has thrown our way of living into treacherous and unchartered waters. With each passing day, the scare of this novel virus is causing our emotionally charged government officials at every level to react with decisions that effectively strip our ability to work, shop, play and interact normally in order to slow or prevent the spread of this viral outbreak while causing economic mayhem. The effects of this new normal can, at a minimum, last weeks but most likely several months. However, the challenges presented as a result of this situation could easily affect people’s livelihoods for years!

The government’s utilization of its civil authority to force shutdowns of our entire way of life and ability to operate our businesses, especially restaurants and hospitality, is having a major impact on our life savings, restaurant’s bottom lines and our ability to follow through on our contractual obligations to our business partners. This ripple effect includes the requirement of closing our restaurants, creating an absent and fearful workforce with obligations for their employees’ compensation, disruption of supply chains, cancellations of reservations and bookings, relying on previously rare and somewhat untested technologies to work virtually and remotely, and so much more.