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We’re pausing the t-shirt part of this campaign to print our first round of 300 shirts. We’ll open it up again after we fulfill our initial order. The Short Story: We partnered with local artists to raise funds to pay State of Illinois unemployment tax penalties that were incurred due to our forced shut-down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our business will owe the State of Illinois tens of thousands of dollars over the course of the next two years because we followed the mandated shut-down orders.
Danish pancake balls that we serve with powdered sugar and our house raspberry jam. We’re one of the few restaurants in the country to serve them. We thought: what better food to feature on a shirt to raise awareness about the little Nordic pub that we’re fighting for here in the North End of Rockford. We asked our friends Joe Tallman and Alison Weust to design us the art. To explain why we’re hosting a fundraiser, we’ll need to start at the beginning of the pandemic. On March 15th, 2020, Illinois Governor J. Pritzker shut down restaurants and bars.
A few months later, we were allowed to reopen with outdoor seating and limited indoor seating. So we moved half our tables outside, built additional outdoor seating, and complied with his request. A few months later, we were forced to close for indoor dining. Not wanting to lose our employees, especially right before the holidays, we pivoted into a holiday market, making a shopping experience for our community.
Our neighbors supported us, and we were one of the fortunate restaurants who made it through the pandemic. On January 2nd, 2021, we shut down the holiday market. Because the State of Illinois was still not permitting indoor dining, we complied, and we laid off our staff. We called IDES, and we were told to label lay-offs as “COVID-19 related,” and our unemployment tax rate would not be affected. We have learned that–beginning on January 1, 2021, while we were still in a mandated shut-down–the State of Illinois was beginning unemployment tax rate hikes.