The night of June 6 at Ella Em’s Soul Food represented the new normal for the North Las Vegas restaurant. Seating was limited to meet social distancing guidelines, but close to two dozen people dined on wings and waffles, catfish and fried chicken, seemingly unfazed by the risk of the coronavirus.
To-go orders were lined up behind the front counter in plastic bags, and third-party delivery drivers hurried in and out. A sign instructed customers to wait outside after placing takeout orders.
“When the virus first hit, it affected us substantially,” said Pierre X, who owns Ella Em’s with his wife, Aem Upachak.
The state ordered all nonessential businesses closed in mid-March to curb the spread of the virus. Restaurants were limited to carry-out service only and were not allowed to reopen their dining rooms until May 9.
“We just said this is our bread and butter and we had to keep it going,” Pierre X said. “We reinvented ourselves. Part of that was introducing the eatery apps like Grubhub and DoorDash. That helped us because it got us a lot of new business.”
Some small businesses in Las Vegas—including Ella Em’s—have been able to adapt and survive the crisis. Others haven’t been as fortunate.
Black-owned business owners have been hit especially hard, said Frank Hawkins, co-owner of the Nevada Wellness Center marijuana dispensary and a former president of the Las Vegas chapter of the NAACP.
“When white America gets a cold, black America gets pneumonia,” Hawkins said. “A lot of our African-American businesses are service businesses. Some businesses have been able to be resistant, but if you have a support business or a barbershop or beauty shop, they had to close.”
Pierre X said a couple of competing soul food restaurants “couldn’t withstand the storm” and were forced to close. “This year has been something else,” he said.
David Washington, one of the founders of the Black Business Council of Nevada and a former Las Vegas fire chief, said it’s no secret that a significant number of minority-owned small businesses across the country will not recover from the coronavirus downturn.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Washington said. “We are working on some things, though, and one big thing is to help some of these black businesses in our community get access to capital. Otherwise, some won’t come back at all.”
Sparked by the killing of a black man in police custody last month in Minnesota, protests advocating for social change have emerged in recent weeks in nearly all major U.S. cities. The national outcry—the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1960s—could, some say, affect not just changes in police practices but a wider array of social justice issues.
Brian Harris, president of the council, said the issue of access to capital for minorities is something that needs to change. It’s the reason the council formed almost three decades ago.
“That’s the main problem in the black business community: We haven’t been able to get loans,” Harris said. “You can never have social justice without economic opportunities. If a group doesn’t have the same opportunities—not just for jobs, but for business opportunities—then you get what you’re getting now.”
Harris said government programs such as the New Markets Tax Credit program, established in 2000 to help funnel investment dollars into low-income areas, have largely failed to aid black small-business owners.
It’s part of an entrenched system of institutional racism in America, said Harris, who also owns a business called EMC Consulting.
“When you have a good-old-boy system that is designed to keep our businesses away from opportunity, what can you expect?” Harris said. “The top 10% in America own a combined 80-90% of the wealth, so everybody else is fighting over crumbs. That’s a problem for everyone in the United States, not just black folks. We’re just at the bottom of the barrel.”
During the pandemic, financial relief initiatives like Paycheck Protection Program loans through the Small Business Administration have been popular. But the rollout of some of the programs has sometimes been chaotic.
Pam Smith, owner of Sadie’s Kitchen and Catering, said she was able to secure a PPP loan shortly after the pandemic hit. It kept her company afloat, she said.
“That enabled us to pay our bills and keep going,” Smith said. “Because we weren’t stuck in any rental or mortgage contracts, we were able to reinvent ourselves with the help of that loan.”