Controversial Fresno restaurant owner received millions in federal coronavirus relief
A Fresno restaurateur who has butted heads with city, county and state officials in recent weeks has received possibly as much as $5 million in federal coronavirus pandemic relief dollars.
Pismo’s Coastal Grill owner David Fansler is one of more than 1,000 local restaurant owners who received Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, loans.
Fansler got loans for all three of his north Fresno restaurants: Pismo’s, Westwoods BBQ & Spice Co. and Yosemite Ranch.
Loans of more than $150,000, which went to 142 central San Joaquin Valley restaurants, were reported in ranges but the dollar amounts were not specified in data released by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Pismo’s and Westwoods were loaned between $1 million and $2 million each, records show, and Yosemite Ranch got between $350,000 and $1 million.
Fansler did not return a request for comment Thursday.
Many restaurant owners are struggling with uncertainty after they were forced to close indoor dining, re-opened and then closed again, according to Chuck Van Fleet, owner of Vino Grille & Spirits and president of the Fresno chapter of the California Restaurant Association.
“Without the PPP, I don’t know where we’d be,” Van Fleet said on Thursday. “We had a lot of people who felt good when they came into our place, because everything was by the book.”
Van Fleet said he was loaned $175,500, which has come in handy more so as he’s allowed to serve food on the patio at his restaurant, which has 30 employees.
He said he was staffed at about three people at a time while serving only to-go orders, but the patio needs more staffing. Though, without the indoor dining, it’s hard to make any money.
“We’re down probably 40% from last year. In order to maintain that 40% (less), it takes more staff,” he said. “The margins in restaurants are extremely small. That PPP is making sure we can stay alive.”
Many other small businesses, including restaurants, struggled to get to the trough for the SBA program when it was first launched in April. The first round of funding was gone within days, and some businesses reported having trouble finding lenders to work with to secure the forgiveable loans.
Thousand-plus take PPP loans
Through the end of June, more than 1,000 restaurants across the central San Joaquin Valley received loans through two rounds of the PPP, part of the massive CARES Act passed by Congress to provide relief from economic damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The vast majority of those businesses — 904 of them — received under $150,000 in loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The SBA has not released the names of companies that received those smaller loans
Collectively, those smaller loans added up to $35.9 million, and were expected to help keep paychecks coming for nearly 9,200 employees in those businesses.
Mad Duck Brewing landed a loan between $350,000 and $1 million. Owner Alex Costa said times are hard for the restaurant and brewery that opened a third location about a year ago.
“(PPP) did help and, no, it’s not enough given the new rollbacks,” he said in a text message. “But, I’m not sure what will be, to be honest. It’s a difficult time for many, many people and businesses.”
The two largest loans, which fell in the $5 million-to-$10 million range, went to Visalia-based RLMK Inc. and Merced-based ALIA Corp. Each of the two companies owns several McDonald’s locations and employ 500 people apiece, according to records.
Between recipients of both small and large loans, SBA data indicates that the loans were expected to help businesses retain nearly 19,000 workers during the disruption caused by the pandemic.
Fresno Bee reporter Tim Sheehan contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 1:54 PM.
