In this episode, Matt chats to Dov Girun and Wendy Alberts. As you know, the restaurant industry has been among the worst impacted by the lockdown regulations. With closed doors and almost completely reduced turnover, the sale of takeaways for delivery only, has been merely a drop in the ocean in bringing this sector back to life. Restaurants with no customers, no cash-flow, diminishing reserves and no idea when they can reopen for onsite dining, are folding quietly and quickly.

But having sat idle for weeks now, restaurant owners with and without pre-existing delivery capabilities are struggling to afford to buy stock, pay wages, deep clean, or even ramp up marketing to compete in the new ‘dark kitchen’ space, within lockdown regulations. As a responsible credit provider, Merchant Capital, a non-bank lender that works with thousands of South African restaurant owners, has stepped in by offering to provide working capital at regular intervals, based on an assessment of the restaurant’s delivery/take-away revenue growth week by week, an important step in remaining a responsible credit provider. The product, REBOOT, will allow successful applicants to reboot their cash flow and ultimately their restaurants in order to survive the lockdown.

We bring you an in depth panel discussion focusing on the restaurant industry, featuring Wendy Alberts the CEO of the Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) and Dov Girnun, the CEO of Merchant Capital.