Restaurants ask Congress for help as Omicron hits businesses hard

The National Restaurant Association is asking Congress to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund to assist members that are struggling to operate in the wake of Omicron variant. The fund created by Congress authorized $28.6 billion to provide aid to businesses as they coped with the effects of the pandemic. "The industry still hasn’t recreated the more than 650,000 jobs lost early in the pandemic, a loss 45 percent more than the next closest industry,” wrote NRF lobbyist Sean Kennedy.