You choose: Dine-in or takeout during Pierce County’s Restaurant Rally discount program

If you plan to take advantage of Pierce County’s Restaurant Rally, a CARES Act program that will pay back participating full-service restaurants for extending a 30 percent discount to customers over 10 days in November, you can dine-in or takeout.

The Pierce County Council on Tuesday amended the original emergency ordinance, adopted in early October, following push back from constituents concerned about a recent spike in COVID-19 cases. The county health department also recommended that takeout be included in the program.

The deadline for restaurants to apply has been extended to this Thursday, Oct. 29. It will still run as planned, Nov. 8-12 and Nov. 15-19.

Modeled after the United Kingdom’s month-long Eat Out To Help Out initiative, the Pierce County program will inject $7.5 million of CARES Act funding into the hospitality industry — specifically full-service restaurants, which continue to be walloped by the financial headaches of pandemic restrictions.

The original ordinance included a clause allowing for the “pivot” to include takeout, said council vice chair David Morell, should cases of COVID-19 rise.

Indeed, Pierce County has reported over 100 cases on multiple days since the program was revealed, after a brief respite in September.

At the County Council’s study session Monday, Morell and legislative analyst Hugh Taylor explained the change as minor. Officially, “eligible” meals now entail any dine-in purchase or takeout order, excluding alcohol.

The council wanted to ensure that participating restaurants knew they would be reimbursed for extending the discount no matter where customers ate their food.

“This is a courtesy to provide certainty to the businesses,” said Taylor.

Formally adding takeout to the ordinance assured restaurants the county had their back for reimbursement, added Morell in a phone call to The News Tribune.

IS A ‘RESTAURANT RALLY’ A GOOD IDEA?

What won’t change is which restaurants can participate: Only full-service restaurants, per the federal business classification system (called NAICS), are eligible.

“The reason behind the Restaurant Rally is, No. 1 to protect jobs, to increase hours available to those in the hospitality business,” said Morell at Monday’s study session.

The industry has requested rental assistance from the county in higher numbers than most any other, he added.

County Council member Derek Young expressed consternation early on that the program seemed to ignore the potential health risks involved with sitting in a restaurant for several hours. This week, he said he appreciated the addition of takeout but wondered why the county didn’t just give restaurants the money.

“I continue to be concerned about this and the message it sends while we’re closing schools,” he said. “I’ll put it this way: ‘furious’ is the word that I would say goes along well with this ordinance.”

The case count was different in September when the council was fleshing out details of the November program. He acknowledged as much but added, “Right now every time I see this posted on social media, I see angry parents whose kids can’t get into school, and we’re telling people to go dine in a restaurant. It seems incongruent.”

Morell insisted that the program’s intent was to protect jobs and support the hardest-hit segment of the hardest-hit industry. Sales at fast-food and fast-casual restaurants have reached near pre-pandemic levels, while full-service restaurants’ sales hover around half. It also provides an opportunity to highlight how restaurants have stepped up safety protocols and have by and large been following the governor’s Safe Start guidelines.

Plus, he said, the Restaurant Rally rewards individuals, not businesses, as most relief aid has. Simultaneously, Seattle Restaurant Week, in which participating restaurants offer set-price meals at a slight discount, is running now through mid-November, after being postponed in March.

“This is the first time that we’ve done anything for individuals in Pierce County to give them a reward for doing what it takes during a pandemic to get through it,” he said.

County Council member Marty Campbell added that by giving customers a discount and reimbursing restaurants, the economic impact has the chance to give “an economic kick” into the industry as a whole.

About 485 restaurants in Pierce County are eligible, according to the county’s economic development director Betty Capestany. About 200 had applied as of last Friday, and now the county hopes for a few more.

Restaurants can apply through Oct. 29 at www.piercecountywa.gov/restaurantrally.

PIERCE COUNTY RESTAURANT RALLY

▪ When: Nov. 8-12 and 15-19 (not applicable on Fridays or Saturdays)

▪ What: Receive 30% off your meal at participating restaurants, dine-in and takeout

This story was originally published October 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.