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COVID ruined our business and life

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I am the co-owner of Black Lotus Pizza in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  My boyfriend, David, and I have dreamed about having our own business for years.  About ten years ago he came up with the idea to have a restaurant where people can come and play games and form a community while enjoying good food.  We finally were able to start to make this dream a reality in September 2019.  It took a lot of time and effort to  establish as a business, find a location, and obtain funding.  After months of searching, we finally found a location and closed on buying the previous business in that location and signing a lease for the property on March 1st, 2020 - the shutdown occurred on March 14th.  It took months to get ready to open because we weren’t able to get our equipment (that the previous company lied to us and said was working) fixed and to have the business inspected due to the shutdown.  We finally opened June 19th 2020.  We had to go ahead with opening even with COVID because we already sunk $80,000 into this business that we would have lost if we didn't open.

Since then we have gotten excellent reviews on our food, but people are not coming in because of COVID.  Two weeks after we opened our county stopped allowing dine-in due to a spike in. COVID cases.  We're finally back open to 50% capacity, but COVID cases are spiking again and people aren't coming in.  There are other pizza places and other bars, the thing that was to set us apart, building a gaming community, isn't able to happen because of COVID. 

We are currently looking into to selling our liquor license because our loan on it is extremely expensive.  We didn't qualify for any of the COVID relief because we are a new business.  We have applied and asked for help through multiple other community resources, but either they can't help us or they don't get back to us or just suggest things that don't work.  Even if we close the business we still have a lease and loans we have to pay.  David is already working 95 hours a week doing this and is looking into getting another job during his very limited time off because we have no money.  I work full time+ as nurse case manager.  Your help would help us stay open while we try to sell our liquor license and try to avoid bankruptcy because this is where this is heading if things don't change right away.  We would really appreciate any help.  We would much rather make food for you than ask for donations, but we don't know what else to do.
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    Co-organizers (2)

    Ashley Lanaghan
    Organizer
    Pittsburgh, PA
    David Alexander
    Co-organizer

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