LEXINGTON, Ky. — Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment operates seven luxury steakhouses across Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. The family business decided to donate $60,000, all of one night’s sales, to its furloughed workers after indoor dining was banned again in Kentucky, impacting two of the Jeff Ruby Steakhouses.
Britney Miller, CEO of Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment, says in a statement from their website: “When we heard the announcement that Governor Andy Beshear was going to close for the second time restaurants, we were devastated. We were blindsided.”
The restaurant chain has been in business for 40 years. It currently employs over 500 workers. But the new restrictions forced the business to furlough more than half of its 160 workers in Kentucky.
Miller continues: “When you basically have to go give deliver a message that your restaurant families getting furloughed right before the holidays with no plan in place whatsoever, it’s the most heartbreaking message I’ve ever given.”
She says restaurants shouldn’t be shut down—and keeping them open with safety measures can actually limit the spread of the CCP virus: “We know that they’re safe. I’m on Governor Dewine’s restaurant advisory group. I’ve had health commissioners to my face and epidemiologist and here in Cincinnati, even our own Mayor Cranley, saying that restaurants should not be shut down, they are not part of this second surge, this wave, that restaurants actually helped offset these large gatherings in unregulated environments.”
Miller says she will be cutting checks two weeks early to her furlough workers. Her two Kentucky restaurants will receive anywhere from ten to twenty thousand dollars from the government for the three-week closure. Miller plans to donate that amount to her workers as well.
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