5.6.20 Bee-otch of the Day: Meritage Hospitality Group

BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF T-SHIRT HELL AND MAKE SOME MONEY!

Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded Monday through Thursday; Bee-otch of the Week is awarded Sunday morning on Chuck69.com.

 

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Name: Meritage Hospitality Group
Age: ??
Occupation: restaurant owner
Last Seen: Grand Rapids, MI
Bee-otched For: not knowing where the beef is                                                               

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From a distance, I hear Dave Thomas spinning in his grave.

Despite being illiterate most of his life, he worked his ass off to make Wendy's the restaurants they are now. Part of their success is attributed to their infamous "Where's the Beef?" commercial from nearly four decades ago.

Dave's been dead for 18 years now, but his legacy lives on, one Baconator at a time. It's just too bad that some of his restaurants are owned by assholes.

Recently, it was announced that a Grand Rapids-based company that owns over 330 restaurants in 16 states accepted $29 million in the Paycheck Protection Program. Meritage Hospitality Group is a publicly-traded company that made $13 million in profit last year. Its CEO, Robert Schermer made nearly $2 million last year.

Because Wendy's is an essential business that makes a chunk of their profit from drive-thru service, most of their locations are still open, including 329 Meritage O&Os. However, Meritage owns several non-franchised restaurants which are closed during the pandemic: Morning Belle in Grand Rapids, Freighters in Port Huron, Wheelhouse in Grand Rapids and two Twisted Roosters in the Detroit area. Only their Stan Diego restaurant in Walker is still open with curbside and to-go orders only.

Now, many Meritage employees are stepping up to claim that the company is cheating them out of their PPP pay.

A waitress at Freighters told Grand Rapids' WOOD-TV's Heather Walker that she has not seen one penny of the company's $29 million loan from the government. Stephanie Chavez is a single mother of three who has even tried to file for unemployment. Since she only made $5,000 last year before tips, she was denied unemployment. With tips, she made over $20,000. Meritage also claimed that 137 other employees have that same problem. 

The PPP loans were supposed to cover small businesses. A company that owns several hundred Wendy's, rakes in over $13 million in profit yearly and has a CEO that rakes in $2 million in salary is NOT a small business. What's even worse is that recently, three major restaurant chains, Ruth's Chris, Shake Shack and sub shop Potbelly all accepted PPP loans. They all paid back their loans under scrutiny. I work for a small company that got a PPP loan. Even though I don't have a lot of work, I'm still employed because of this loan. My boss told me that in order to accept the loan, they had to keep 95% employment. Granted, I would make more money unemployed. But, my mother was recently furloughed and has not seen one dime of unemployment money. I've heard of scores of people who have not seen a paycheck since the pandemic started. Working during the pandemic sucks. But, I'm still getting paid for 40 hours despite only working when I have work.

But now, karma is hitting Meritage extremely hard. And customers are definitely yelling, "Where's the Beef?"

Wendy's just announced that because of our nation's beef shortage, some 1,000 of their locations do not have beef at the moment. And yes, that means locations owned by Meritage. Granted, part of the problem is linked to shuttered meat processing plants whose employees ended up infected with COVID-19. I was at Costco today and the only steaks they sold were two tiny packages of two ribeyes for a pitiful $40 each package. However, there was plenty of pork ribs and roasts and even lamb. 

The sad reality is that because of the conditions meat processing plants possess, we should simply stray away from fresh meat for a while until the virus runs its course. Less demand for steaks translate into lower prices and less animals being killed and slaughtered. Since the pandemic began, I have not seen any disinfectant wipes at Costco, and only within the past few weeks they started selling one brand of toilet paper: Charmin. 

It's a shame that we have people like Stephanie Chavez who live paycheck to paycheck while her CEO boss won't be losing sleep tonight. Because of his *ahem* Frosty attitude by making his lawyer talk for him, it shows how not-so-down-to-Earth he and his company are. Then again, Wendy's is owned by Republicans, which says a lot about the company's culture.

Personally, this is a good time to boycott Wendy's and Meritage for treating their employees this way. It also makes me a little happier that I don't work in the restaurant business and don't plan to ever again. It's simply a business where there's no real security and where the only people making decent money are the bosses making $2 million per year, like Robert Schermer. 

Here's an idea: when America finally opens up again, we need to support true, local, family-run businesses. It's a shame that many small businesses won't get PPP loans and will have to shutter in the long run. Meritage employees deserve much better than to be thrown under the bus because of irresponsible management.

Where's the Beef? How about SHOW ME THE MONEY!

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