As the day comes and goes, PR Italian Bistro is open to anyone who wants’s to have a good night out for some expensive Italian dinners. But with them opening back up during a pandemic. They have had to face some challenges along the way.
From the beginning of the year 2020, PR Italian Bistro was struggling as compared to the usual numbers that they have averaged since their opening in 2015. John Stuart, who is the owner of PR Italian Bistro talks about him in further detail.
“We were struggling more than usual even before the pandemic began but we always usually see a slow start to the year because people like to come to our restaurant whenever it is nice outside usually during the summer years.” John Stuart said.
So starting off the year, they were not too worried about it because they knew that eventually the weather would start to heat up and then they would get tons of people coming into their restaurant to enjoy an expensive dinner.
But they had to close in-person dining in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic which really impacted their business hard due to the slow start that they had.
“Our financial state really took a beating from this pandemic and with our slow start that we had to start off the year and we still have struggled even after we reopened to in-person dining because we had to have limited capacity.” John Stuart said.
Stuart has also, unfortunately, had to fire some of his employees during the pandemic due to the fact that they did not have the finances to keep any of them at the restaurant.
“That was the toughest thing that I have had to do during the pandemic,” John Stuart said. “Having to let go some employees who were here since the opening of PR Italian Bistro’s was very tough for me and for them.”
But despite all of the struggles, they have been receiving a good amount of money from the city of Chicago but even then Stuart believes that the money is still not enough for them.
“While we have been getting a lot of money from the city which is helping us out,” John Stuart said. “We still are not generating enough money and if this continues to trend to what I am fearing then we will have no choice but to close down the restaurant unless we can be allowed to have unlimited capacity.”
