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RT: It’s complicated as hell, the PPP alone.
CH: I wouldn’t want to do this alone. We’re all
pretty much guys that are going to figure stuff
out. I’m not looking for guidance. I’m looking
to go through the forest with machete and
chop it down myself.
TM: If we’re going down, we’re going down
swinging.
CH: We’ve worked really hard and this isn’t
about us. It’s about 186 people that we
employed and some of whom are back,
some of them aren’t. And that’s who you’re
fighting for.
CL: How many people did you have to
furlough or lay off?
RT: We furloughed 145 people on the same
day. Everyone talks about family. But these
people are.
CH: On Easter this year, I realized I had two
people that this was the 21st Easter we would
have served together. Every single Easter
Sunday with those two guys for 21 years,
that’s longer than I’ve been married.
RT: We put everyone on salary at a 50% right
away, just ‘cause we weren’t sure what was
going on. But the level of business that came
allowed us to bring some people back,
allowed us to pay our managers 75%, not
50%. PPP came along. And whoever’s coming
back, we pay them 100%.
CH: We’ve been fortunate. We had a local
bank that got that helped us with that loan.
TM: They had our back. I’ll call them out,
Cornerstone Bank. If you’re looking for a
good local bank that gives a shit about your
company, those guys do.
CL: There are so many I talked to who said
they worked with bigger banks but, during
this, they couldn’t get an answer and
ultimately weren’t able to get the PPP.
CH: They couldn’t handle the volume. They
could not handle it. This is another example
of why being local is important. If you keep
things local and you support local businesses,
they’ll support you. These are people in your
community that are employing other people
in your community and making your
community what it is you love about it.
CL: Speaking of local, many of your
restaurants are in Smyrna or in this area.
What is it about this area?
CH: We all live here.
RT: That’s a simple as it gets.
TM: M&T exists because there was nowhere
else to eat at in Smyrna 15 years ago, that
was worth much. We were driving down to
midtown to go eat all the time, and that got
old, so we were like, ‘Doesn’t our community
deserves something like this?’
CH: I’m very proud of living in Smyrna.
RT: Me too.
CH: There’s nothing wrong with Vinings, but
when people are like, ‘Oh, I live in Sminings,’
It’s like, ‘No, you don’t. You live in Smyrna.’
We have a kick ass town. It’s a cool place to
live.
TM: It’s come so far.
CH: That restaurant over there (M&T) was one
of the beginning businesses that made
Smyrna what it is today.
RT: There were like, six restaurants within a
mile-and-a-half of this property when we first
opened.
TM: There’s like 37 now.
RT: And because there was not a lot going
on, we were given a very long, forgiving
runway to figure it out. We had a lot of people
that really wanted us to win because they
wanted to not have to travel to other places
to get that level of food and that level of
hospitality. We went through three dramatic
JULY 2020 | COBB LIFE 31
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