Jennifer Evanchyk, co-owner of Shuffle Tampa, was ready to breathe a sigh of relief after the struggles her business faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In May, Shuffle, the only indoor Shuffleboard bar and restaurant in Florida, received an approval letter for a federal grant through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The amount: $117,000.
It was a “life changing” feeling, she says. Shuffle had waited so long for the relief.
The funds were supposed to be deposited in their business account within seven days. Evanchyk and her business partner Danielle O’Connor checked their bank account every day, anxiously awaiting the money. Shuffle could upgrade its air conditioning for the brutal summer heat, Evanchyk thought. It could fix up the backyard of the business and make other crucial improvements. She and O’Connor could finally move forward from the turbulent pandemic year.
But day after day, the money wasn’t there. The anticipation became more dire and their anxiety heightened. She constantly logged in to an online portal to check the status of their loan.
She checked over and over again, until one day near the end of June, she logged in to see one devastating word: ‘rejected’.
“It was pure shock,” Evanchyk told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
The official rejection letter gave three reasons why Shuffle might have been denied for the loan, after being approved.
- You have applied for the SVOG (Shuttered Venue Program) and therefore are ineligible for RRF.
- You have previously defaulted on an SBA loan.
- Upon review of your award request, the SBA has decided that your award can not be approved due to an ineligible business type or other related reasons. The SBA will not take any further action on your application.
But neither of the first two applied to Shuffle, Evanchyk says, and the last potential reason was vague.
She searched for answers. She made calls and sent messages, but no one responded. Eventually she thought to herself: How could they approve us, then suddenly deny us?
Around that time, Evanchyk saw a June 24 article published by FSR Magazine: “SBA Revokes More Restaurant Revitalization Fund Grants.”
“Another twist in the Small Business Association’s (SBA) distribution of Restaurant Revitalization Fund grants took place midday Wednesday as an unknown number of previously approved applicants received rejection notices,” the article reads.
In March, when Congress created the $75 billion restaurant fund as part of the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, it included language that the SBA should prioritize funding businesses owned by women, people of color and veterans.
In June, a conservative legal group founded by Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows, close aides to former President Donald Trump, filed a lawsuit in Texas on behalf of the owners of the restaurant “Blessed Cajuns,” arguing that the prioritization of applicants on the basis of race and gender is unconstitutional.
The next month, the New York Times reported that federal judges said that it was evident that the program’s policy violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The SBA suddenly ended the policy and revoked the awards of nearly 3,000 priority applicants who had been approved for grants. In total, 265,000 business owners were denied Restaurant Revitalization Fund funds, while more than 100,000 were approved.
Since the story broke, it’s reached national news outlets, while affecting the livelihoods of people across the country.
This leaves people like Evanchyk and O’Connor to suffer.
“To have navigated the past 15 months of this pandemic and be notified that help is on the way, just to have it all pulled from under you is a low blow,'' she says.
It’s one thing to just be denied, Evanchyk says. But to be assured funds and then to have them revoked is disastrous for their livelihood, and to the efforts that Shuffle has made for the Tampa Heights community.
Shuffle opened in March of 2018 and has been famously vagina-forward since. It offers community shuffleboard league nights, corporate team building, and recreational therapy for local veterans. The building features four indoor Shuffleboard courts, a full bar and kitchen. There’s a high cost to maintaining such a business, and the past year has presented the biggest challenge in Shuffle’s existence.
“I feel like these SBA funds are dead in the water,” says Evanchyk.
But she and O’Connor aren’t quitting.
They’ve contacted state representatives, and they ask community members to do the same. At the top of the homepage on Shuffle’s website is a link to petition congress to refill the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. It takes literally 15 seconds to fill out, says Evanchyk.
With enough people raising their voices about the situation, there’s a possibility for a brighter future.
“We’re hopeful that new funds will open up,” Evanchyk says. “And that would mean so much to us.”
CL reached out to the local SBA office to inquire about the reason Shuffle was approved then denied its loan, but has not yet received a response. Has your business been denied an SBA loan after being initially approved? Email me ([email protected]) or CL’s anonymous tip inbox ([email protected])
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