« Fox & Friends

Virginia restaurant owner: Please come support us during the holidays

2020-12-04 | 🔗
Ford’s Fish Shack owner Tony Stafford implores people to support restaurants during the pandemic by buying giftcards or ordering takeout so they can continue employing their staff during the holidays.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian welcome back everyone, Brian welcome back everyone. Twenty three minutes after the hour, Virginias Cambel County, taking a stand against Governor Northams, coronavirus, reevictions and declaring itself a first amendment sanctuary three different restaurants who joined us back in April. After speaking, directly to President Trump about the positive impact the paycheck protection program had on his business. He has since run out of PPP money, chef and owner of Fords FISH Shack in virginiaa. Tony Stafford is with us now good morning. Brian, the money is out. You are fifty percent capacity. Worse could be coming because the virus is not going away. What have you decided to do our backs are against the wall. We are fighting every day. I have to support my employees and save my job. We are trying to get the message out to support our restaurants, Brian First Amendment sanctuary. What does that entail? First, amendment sanctuary from what I understand is. Basically we are stepping out
and saying that we are not that county. That declared sanctuary but im very proud of my fellow Virginia residents for standing up and doing that, and we have got to stick this out and save our jobs. Brian. You know its so different. The governor came out and he understood and he stared you in the eye and five hundred restaurants in your county and said hey. This is what im worried about. This is what were doing. You showed him the plexiglass and showed him the separation we wouldnt be here. There is no willingness from this governor to make that effort yeah. We are just very frustrated that jobs, jobs, jobs. We have my litittle three restaurants from one hundred and twenty one hundred and forty jobs. I have got to look these employees in the eye and say I dont know if you will have a job tomorrow in the middle of holiday. Our backs are against the wall, come and support us, its very frustrating Brian. Are you world Thehe Sheri is going to show up at all five hundred
restaurants and what they did in Staten Island and start arresting people. If you stay open, I would hope it wouldnt come to that again. We are just small business owners trying to run our businesses a and run them safely and practice social distancing and support our local people that have supported us over these years. Its become a struggle. Brian Tony. The other thing is the misinformation. The government makes a statement about assembly all of a sudden people think in Virginia. I guess I cant go to a restaurant, because there is more than twenty five people there. You have a message for the people that want to go out to eat, yeah come and have us, our dining rooms are open, sit in our dining rooms. We are practicing social distancing, support us during this holiday season and support our employees. Help get us through this buy gift cards and takeout. There is ways: can you support gift cards during the holiday season? Instead of buying your mom, a pair of with a jam mass, buy a gift card to a restaurant Brian? How many pajamas does she need?
You have a food truck too. We do three restaurants, Ford, fish, shack, fresh New England Seafood and a food truck out there. Just hitting the ground running. My employees have been great and supportive of all of this. They just want to keep their jobs and dont want to go through. Another round of layoffs, come support, all your restaurants and small businesses and small business restaurants, Brian. When you trace back from restaurants, the infection rate is not high. You are taking precautions because you want to stay in business too. If word gets out that you are not taking precautions, nobody is coming. You are and infections staying low. We know there is a virus. Why kill business along with it?.
Transcript generated on 2020-12-04.