(Radio Iowa) –  Many Iowa restaurants are wondering how they’ll be able to start paying off federal loans that were made available at the start of the pandemic. Payments on Economic Injury Disaster Loans were deferred for more than two years. Iowa Restaurant Association C-E-O Jessica Dunker says it’s a struggle for some restaurants to start making those monthly payments — since spending patterns have changed and more customers are not ordering appetizers, sharing entres and only drinking water.

Dunker says for most restaurants, profits are razor thin. and very few restaurants are back to the profitability levels that they had in 2019. By the end of LAST year, about 800 restaurants that were open at the beginning of the pandemic had closed. And Dunker warns there will be more to add to that list when the tally is done for 2023.