COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A Smyrna restaurant owner has sold her car to make sure her employees have a little cash in their pockets during the coronavirus pandemic.
Charity Salyers used $11,000 she received last week from selling her 2016 Ford Mustang to pay about eight Vittles Restaurant employees and cover the rent on the eatery at 2579 South Cobb Drive. The amount, she said, will be enough to “carry me forward for two months.”
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“And I figured two months would give us enough time for these [COVID-19 case] numbers to go down…and be able to reopen,” she said.
Vittles transitioned to take-out-only service March 20 due to the pandemic. Salyers said proceeds at the restaurant plummeted from about $3,500 a day to roughly $300. Realizing that wasn’t going to cut it, Salyers said she closed soon after.
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However, her restaurant’s primary customer base are older adults, and Salyers said they were “practically begging me to reopen the restaurant” because they didn’t want to eat fast food. She re-opened two weeks ago for take-out service, but cash flow was still a problem.
“Our regulars were coming, but it wasn’t enough to suffice,” she said.
Last week, Salyers said she was wondering how she was going to cover rent and pay her employees. The only thing she could come up with was to sell her car.
“At that time, I just had to make a rash decision, and that was the only thing I could do to make enough money to carry myself forward for a few months and stay open,” she said. For now, two of her employees are giving her rides to and from her restaurant.
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