#Surge and Kit would also be redeemed | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

idw-sonic-fan-blog · 2 years ago

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So if they can't be redeemed what do you believe Surge and Kit's fate to be? Just show up as recurring villains with the same "I reject the world" shtick or death like Starline?

I am sorry that I am late in answering this.

It's simple: Be nihilistic villains.

They do not have to die or be "redeemed."

Look, in all of Sonic's rogues galley, we have characters like Blaze, Shadow, Knuckles, Jet the Hawk, and Metal Sonic. Knuckles was misled and now fervently on the side of the good guys, but you'd be lying if you said the character did not lose his appeal when he made that transition to merely disliking or tolerating Sonic. Metal Sonic can't verbalize and even when it does, it's just Eggman as Sonic anyway. shadow literally is what Surge would become if turned good and thus would be redundant. Jet is already the cocky Sonic but actually a criminal thing going on, but not as evil as Eggman or Zavok. And Blaze already fills the niche of an alternatively good Sonic in her own dimension and the cast. Sorry, Surge and Kit must stay antagonists and actually bad guys because that is their lane that makes them different from anyone else. They don't want to conquer the world. They want to destroy everything. In between villain characters that are world conquerors like Eggman and the Zeti and kingpin-esque characters like Clutch or straight up criminals like Rough and Tumble, that is a great niche to have,

Part of the appeal of Surge is that she is evil or in the case of Surge, she is an sympathetic but nonetheless a villian. Venom of Spider-Man was haphazardly redeemed as an anti-hero and as a Spider-Man fan, I can tell you that took a lot of the edge away from Eddie Brock. His best work was when he directly antagonized Peter Parker and redeeming him via excusing that the reason he was after Peter Parker in the first place was because Daredevil with Spider-Man correctly identified a serial killer vigilante in hold-up while Eddie tried to lie and withhold the identity of the serial killer for clout which the serial killer that Eddie turned in was just a copy cat. Eddie was at his best when he was villain. When he was up in Peter's shit. Another example is Harley Quinn. Part of her appeal aside from her design and concept was that she was evil like Joker, but writers hammed up the domestic abuse angle and that is now her identity. That is all she is known for aside from being in a throuple with Poison Ivy(who is also redeemed but time and overall view of politics redeemed her so that is different).

As much you want to redeem characters like Surge, that is the point. You want to redeem her, but you can't. That is Arcane's and LoL's Jinx. That is Juri Han from Street Fighter. You are supposed to look at characters like Surge who have something off about them and think, "Okay, how can I make her worse?"

Surge puts on the most visually engaging fights with the titular character since the fight with Neo-Metal Sonic. She is the one character outside of Metal Sonic who will throw hands with anyone without the slightest provocation. And it is always with malintent. Not some misunderstanding or whatever cop-out to just make her one of Sonic's friends. She wants to kill them and dammit she won't stop until they are dead. If Surge sees Blaze, we are going to have a fight. If Surge sees Knuckles, we are going to have a fight. If Surge sees Cream, best believe she will throw hands with the rabbit and her Chao.

Why make her like everyone else when she can be her own thing? She destroys cities, burns down forests, damn near killed Sonic, and her justification for it all is society let her down.

Y'all look at this and think, " Let's save her."

She don't wanna be saved. Same with Kit. They made their stance clear. It's not because Starline conditioned them to do it(Surge actively gives herself her own purpose to hate Sonic when Starline failed to provide for her and Kit does the same with the bonus of hating Eggman). It's not because she and Kit don't know who they are before Starline. They don't care. It's the fact that it happened to them in the first place that makes them so angry and they believe the heroes and Eggman only care about them to only fortify their own ideological positions. This is deeper than Mecha Sonic or Metal Sonic. This is deeper than Shadow's memory and past directly his enmity because it's their lack of past and the lack of connection to anyone that cares for them prior to those horrific experiments that drives them. It's the fact that she and Kit were specifically made to be Sonic's and Tails' doppelgangers and that eats at them and unlike Meta and Mecha, these are people. Can you imagine the existential grief of knowing that you had your life ruined to validate the existence of another person. That is different from cloning. That is different from being created to be evil. You were altered to be more like someone else. These are characters that Sonic can't make amends with. And that is what makes it great. Because for once, Sonic and the fanbase that likes this comic are on the same page. You want to redeem her and Surge and Kit don't want to be and any attempt to do so only makes it worse.

#surge the tenrec #sonic the hedgehog #idw sonic the hedgehog #kit the fennec #kitsunami the fennec #let my murder children be evil

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kobolding · 1 year ago

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If you have caught up on the IDW comics for Sonic do you think Surge and kit deserves better or worse in your opinion

Hmmm this is a god question! I think as of the current situation it makes a lot of sense for the restoration to mistrust them, especially considering they ARE up to no good. I think its definitely fun narratively, but im not sure where i want them to go as of yet. I dont think redeeming them would be that interesting tbh, but i also dont want them to just be underlings for bigger bads forever. Id be interested to see them go off on their own, maybe even go into an anti hero direction.

As for what starline did to them, itsof course not great and they didnt deserve it, but without it they wouldnt be in the story so it is what it is. Im definetely very interested in their pasts! I think learning more about them is one of my biggest wishes for the comics right now.

#thank you for sending me this ask it made md really happy #i love when people send me asks

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egg-emperor · 3 years ago

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people saying that Starline is more evil than Eggman for his treatment of Surge and Kit is baffling me. people act like Eggman is just softer and kinder to all his creations just because we've seen moments of him being fatherly to Metal alone. Starline isn't the only one that uses, manipulates, and gaslights those on his side. Eggman has done the same but better multiple times throughout various media but they ignore it.

that's also ignoring the times that Eggman has mistreated or hardly cared about his own creations, despite that being more common than him being nice to them. he's even been like that with Metal himself in some media, there's times he's mistreated him and isn't shown to have that stong of an attachment to him, aside from being proud that he's an impressive creation of his as a stroke of genius, so of course he's going to prize him.

in fact, we don't know if it's canon to the games if he sees him as like a son because he's never referred to himself as his dad in them, it's really most prominently a comics thing. don't get me wrong, I like the father and son dynamic within the media it actually exists in and a bunch of my posts have shown that. but I'm still not going to act like it's canon to the games unless it's blatantly stated or shown in them.

even then, this is an example of people ignoring parts they don't like about the evil Eggman does. just because he might not always mistreat Metal and acts fatherly in some media, it doesn't change the fact that he's still a terrible person that does terrible things, it's certainly nowhere near enough to redeem him, especially because he isn't trying to be good. and if he still mistreats or doesn't care for other robots of his, which is true, then that doesn't make him any nicer or Starline any eviler than him.

and regardless of that weird comparison I'm seeing where people are using it to try to paint Starline as the more evil one while Eggman is given a lack of credit and treated like the lesser evil again-

how the fuck does this little detail of the way Starline interacts with Surge and Kit apparently make him more evil than EGGMAN, the main villain of the series that's always been the one to cause worldwide catastrophes, caused mass destruction that would realistically lead to thousands of deaths, has attempted to murder Sonic and friends and other innocent people multiple times, uses, manipulates, and gaslights people himself, and expresses no remorse? come on man

people acting like that alone is enough to make him more evil than Eggman really shows how much they discredit his evil. Eggman has done the same evil things as Starline (but in much more epic and interesting ways) and way more. what Starline does still doesn't hold a candle to everything Eggman has ever done in his life. when I compare them while fully acknowledging Eggman's evil, unlike those that ignore it to try to present Starline as worse, the latter doesn't seem more evil to me at all.

nobody can become like or surpass Eggman that easily and that's part of what makes Starline so deluded and his goal so unreachable. he will never be Eggman and he will never be better either. Eggman is way more evil than the Eggman wannabe platypus that's been shown making multiple mistakes just like Eggman has in IDW. so why is Eggman the only one that gets discredited for anything evil he's ever done just because of those OOC moments, yet the same doesn't apply to Starline?

it really just doesn't seem like anything other than yet another case of Eggman hate/misconception and Starline favoritism to me.

#dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #idw sonic #my post #analysis

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beevean · 2 years ago

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You, you get it. This version of the fight is beautiful <3

She can be as cruel to Tails as she is to Kit, in a way that feeds into any anxiety Tails might have that he really is just a kid that Sonic doesn’t need around.

The absolute galaxybrain of this take, yes, remind the reader that Surge has all the reasons to be having a breakdown but she’s also an awful person picking on kids who can’t defend themselves! And Tails has never fought Sonic or anyone resembling him, so he’d be very nervous too

Kit has water powers that exploit Sonic’s fear of drowning and also can coat any surface with water so that Sonic can’t build up speed or he’ll hydroplane as the water actively works against his attempts to gain traction.

This is also very clever. Sonic can run on water, but what about just enough water to make the floor slippery? It also reminds me of the set up of the Hydrocity boss: just enough water to slow Sonic down

Sonic not being able to build up speed for his attacks (or escape) and Kit’s similarity to Tails, he’s going to end up accidentally pulling his punches. This is something that Kit will be relying on, especially as he takes the time to set up something and bait Sonic into it.

Sonic would absolutely hate hitting a young kid, let alone someone who resembles his bro 😭 oh this is cruel, I love it

The speedsters get to duke it out and team Sonic gets the edge because of their friendship and experience and all that.

This is an angle the original fight could have leaned on more. Maybe the Tails vs. Kit fight is supposed to imply this, because Tails outsmarts Kit? But yeah, especially in Surge’s case, her raw power is outmatched against Sonic’s raw power and experience. His experience isn’t just about “uh hu hu i’ve redeemed so many enemies, you’re next girlie uwuwuwu”, it should also have been about “another enemy with powers rivaling mine? I was starting to miss them :D”

anyway i love this version yes give me surge vs. tails and kit vs. sonic, they can have the “correct” matches later

Seriously though why did Surge and Kit split up to fight Sonic and Tails separately one on one? Does that make ANY kind of sense to ANYONE? That is the worst possible way to go about writing that confrontation both in terms of telling an engaging story AND in terms of sensible actions by the characters themselves.

What Surge and Kit SHOULD have done if they were being SMART, is they should have divided and conquered. The last issue of Imposter Syndrome showed Surge learning the lesson that she NEEDS Kit to back her up in order to take down Metal Sonic. The only reason they beat him was by ganging up on him and collaborating their powers. You'd THINK, if these characters were being written INTELLIGENTLY, that they would have learned from that and then used it against Sonic and Tails. Have Surge chokeslam Sonic at the speed of lightning, then suddenly Kit and Surge are both barring down on him. She could have had Kit water bind him if she wanted to have her little rant, or just water tomb him and do the roy mustang snap zap. Then they can double back and do the same thing to Tails. There's literally no reason they couldn't and shouldn't have done this, the entire fucking point of the four fucking issues of fucking Imposter Syndrome was dedicated to showing Surge and Kit learning to work together with a culmination of them beating Metal Sonic together, so it doesn't make ANY SENSE that they wouldn't have done it this way.

But the needs of the plot outweigh writing the characters in a way that actually makes sense, you might say. I would say that writing himself into a corner where the only possible way for Surge and Kit to NOT immediately double team and murder Sonic together is by forcing them to hold the idiot ball is indicative of what a hack fraud writer he is. (Fucking seriously, she runs into him so fast Tails didn't even fucking see it happening, she could have chokeslammed him INTO Kit who could have waterbound him up to make him easy pickings and there isn't even decent character motivation for why they wouldn't WANT to do that it's so asinine) But okay.

That still doesn't explain why Surge v Sonic and Kit v Tails had to be TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE ONE ON ONE FIGHTS. Why couldn't it have been Surge AND Kit vs Sonic AND Tails? That would have made for a more exciting fight scene that actually plays to ALL of the characters strengths, and would have emphasized the dichotomy between the two pairs. Would have saved on the page count too, instead of having four fucking stories being juggled (SvS, TvK, Belle fixing Metal, Starline v Eggman) it would have just been three. And those stories would have had a much tighter focus as a result.

Instead everyone acts like an idiot, Belle magically teleports away from being beset upon by a hoard of badniks with literally no explanation, Sonic moralizes at Surge in such an atrocious display that even people who like this piece of shit comic were repulsed by it, Tails defeats Kit by talk-no-jutsuing at him and also somehow figuring out what his reserves of water are and when they're going to run out information he has no reason to know or figure out and also had not been established at any point during Imposter Syndrome that Kits water supply was a finite resource. And Starline dies from rocks falling on him. The only character who comes out of this issue looking good is Eggman.

It's actually kind of insane how literally every single page of issue #50, a double length forty page issue, has something for me to bitch and complain about. Except for maybe the three or four that contain two of Eggman's final boss mechas fighting eachother, which is the sickest god damn thing I have ever fucking seen in my entire life holy shit.

#sonic the hedgehog #fans don't look #long post #just as a tip: :readmore: works with only one colon ^^

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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Restaurant Gift Cards Could Ultimately Be Bad for Business

279photo Studio/Shutterstock

For restaurant owners reopening their doors in a depressed economy, the “interest” on these loans can be steep

Everything was still more or less normal in San Francisco when Reem Assil opened a second location of her bakery, Reem’s California, in early March. Just a week later, San Francisco issued a shelter-in-place order in response to the coronavirus pandemic — a necessary precaution that, for Assil, led to a devastating drop in sales when she needed them most. “We had to figure out, originally, how to go from one to two locations,” Assil tells Eater. “And then it was how to save two locations in different ways.”

Assil initially encouraged her customers, especially regulars who frequented the bakery’s Oakland location, to purchase gift cards to keep both bakeries afloat. “The gift card strategy made sense for us in the beginning, because we know our business thrives off the regulars that go there,” she says.

Facing massive losses in foot traffic and sales, restaurateurs across the country have turned to gift cards as an emergency stopgap measure. For customers who miss their favorite restaurants, buying a gift card is a way of showing support for local businesses without getting anything in return — at least for now. Well-meaning volunteers have compiled lists of restaurants offering gift cards to make up for lost revenue; companies have made headlines for purchasing tens — or hundreds — of thousands of dollars in restaurant gift cards and distributing them to their employees. But as some cities even gear up to reopen in the coming weeks, Assil and others in her position are quickly discovering the limitations of the gift card strategy.

“There’s only so much cash flow you can get from gift cards,” Assil says. Initially, gift card sales brought in $500 to $1,000 a day, but that revenue quickly plateaued. “We need that money now for the cash flow, but we’ll also need it when we reopen our doors at a full capacity and have to rehire folks and get all that up and running.”

Gift cards essentially function as no-interest microloans — small low-interest loans, usually considered a form of philanthropy. Instead of traditional banks or nonprofit creditors, though, pandemic gift cards serve as loans from customers to restaurant owners. Those loans come due whenever social-distancing measures are relaxed and a customer elects to redeem. In the short term, gift cards can be lifesaving for cash-strapped restaurants: They can drive enough revenue to close out a payroll cycle or be used toward rent. Gift cards may give restaurant owners an immediate sense of security, but ultimately, they could also mean less cash flow down the road — especially once restaurants reopen and people decide to redeem the gift cards they purchased. For restaurant owners looking to reopen their doors in a depressed economy, and after months of financial strain, the “interest” on these loans can be steep.

“People’s incomes and livelihoods are all over the place,” Valeria Taylor, the owner of Loba Pastry and Coffee in Chicago, told Eater. “We’re kind of a luxury item — coffee and pastry are not necessities. That’s what makes it a grim outlook at the end of this.”

After Illinois instituted a shelter-in-place order, Taylor closed up shop for two weeks despite her bakery being considered an essential business. The goal was to reevaluate how to stay open in the long run, she says, and she initially encouraged customers to purchase gift cards to help keep the business afloat. “I didn’t know how long I was going to be closed. The way I explained it to people was that the gift cards were going to be helpful — they were an immediate Band-Aid,” she says. “They were going to help me finish a regular payroll period for now and have something to look forward to in the future.”

Taylor says the gift cards helped her make payroll while the bakery was closed, but she stopped promoting them after just one day. Part of the problem was that she didn’t have a pre-existing gift card infrastructure. Instead, customers sent her the funds via Venmo. “I don’t really do gift cards regularly,” she says. “The gift cards that we had, they were just gift certificates we would write in.”

There’s also the issue of staying open for much longer. Most of the bakery’s income came from regulars — people who would pick up a coffee and pastry on their way to work in the mornings. Now that everyone is either working from home or completely out of work, that customer base has dried up. “I didn’t promote [the gift cards] after the first time I posted on Instagram because I was very uncertain about the future of the shop altogether,” Taylor says. “A gift card is almost like a promise that we will be open again, and I don’t know if that’s going to happen. We’re open for now, but I don’t think this is over — and there’s no guarantee we’re going to survive this if no aid is given to us.”

People who want to support their favorite restaurants by buying gift cards may be out of luck if the business ends up closing for good, and restaurant owners may not want to take the risk of angering their former customers by selling gift cards they don’t know they’ll be able to fulfill given the circumstances. A 2010 consumer protection rule imposed limits on gift card fees and expiration dates, but customers have little recourse if the restaurant or business that issues their gift card shuts down altogether.

Small local chains are also feeling the squeeze. Jason Wang, the CEO of New York City mainstay Xi’an Famous Foods, told Eater the government solutions proposed thus far — including low- or no-interest loans — have been lacking. “[W]hat’s lost is lost, it’s not like we in the restaurant industry can get back the lost sales that we missed ever. That time has passed, and we will forever carry the lull on our financials,” Wang said via email.

Xi’an isn’t offering gift cards at all, Wang said, because it doesn’t have an active gift card system, “nor any staff to implement one.” Instead, the chain has come up with other ways to raise revenue, including selling its chile oil packs online. Wang said Xi’an sold $27,000 worth of chile oil packs the first weekend alone, $8,000 of which covered shipping. The chain will soon roll out “a limited release of noodle meal-kits” so people can recreate its dishes in their homes, he said.

Assil, too, has come up with new ways to keep her restaurants afloat as the pandemic continues. Reem’s has begun selling merch, and the bakery’s Oakland location has fully shifted to a commissary kitchen model, where nonprofit organizations like World Central Kitchen order meals in bulk and distribute them to people in need. Though the commissary kitchen meals are being sold more or less at cost, the partnership is providing enough revenue to keep some people working. The merch, meanwhile, is a more secure source of cash flow than gift cards. The costs are both fixed and up-front: restaurant owners have to pay for supplies and, in some cases, shipping, but there are no additional expenses down the line. The bakery’s San Francisco location has also introduced new menu items designed by employees, with the profits benefiting the businesses’ employee relief fund.

“We’re brainstorming other strategies beyond gift cards that don’t rely on this existing model,” Assil says. “Because it’s like, we don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of this. We hit this sobering reality check somewhere in the middle of all this that we may not go back to the way things were, and pretending that it’s going to be business as usual after this doesn’t feel like a very sustainable way of galvanizing support.”

Still, other restaurant owners have embraced gift cards, even though they acknowledge they aren’t a cure-all. “It’s not a lasting solution — it’s just one thing we can do,” says Ravi Kapur, the chief owner of Liholiho Yacht Club in San Francisco. “Yes, it’s not perfect. If everybody came in the day we opened and the only guests in the gift cards restaurant were using gift cards, yeah, that’d be an issue. But we’re not planning for that to happen.”

Kapur says Liholiho had high gift card sales even before the pandemic and saw a surge immediately after San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order was announced in mid-March. The restaurant is currently offering customers 25 percent off all gift cards.

For Kapur, gift card sales are both practical and symbolic. “It showed that people wanted to support in some way and didn’t know how,” he says. Once the restaurant does reopen, the funds brought in by the gift cards will serve as initial runway. But ultimately, they’re a show of goodwill that will help keep his restaurant on “life support.”

Assil agrees. “It’s more symbolic than anything else, people buying gift cards,” she says. They bring in much-needed cash flow, but they’re more of a sign that a restaurant has a dedicated following than a guaranteed source of income in a worsening economic climate.

“The gift cards are not going to save us,” Kapur says. “When we come out on the other side of this, in some form, we’re not going to be like, ‘Wow, we’re in such a good position because of the gift cards sales.’ It’s like, ‘We’re not in a worse-off position.’”

Gaby Del Valle is a freelance reporter who primarily covers immigration and labor. Her work has appeared in Vox, The Nation, The Baffler, and other publications. She’s the co-founder of BORDER/LINES, a weekly newsletter about immigration policy.

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For restaurant owners reopening their doors in a depressed economy, the “interest” on these loans can be steep

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beevean · 1 year ago

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Maybe I missed you saying this but just curious, with all the flaws and bad stuff that IDW has, re there still characters (talking OCs right now) that you would "save" from the comic? Or at least would want to see in a better written story?

Tangle and Whisper, especially the former, are the most redeemable for me. Tangle is cute! She was born as a lazy replacement for Blaze and out of sexism/disdain for non-buttkicking female characters (nice, Flynn), but I think her personality and power fit like a glove in the Sonic cast. Just don't make her an insensitive idiot lmao. I'd probably rewrite her as an older Marine. As for Whisper, I'd tone down the angst, but the idea of a quiet, introvert female character who prefers to work from the shadows is unique in the context of the series.

Starline deserves to exist in the games as Eggman's simp. I accept nothing else. I want to see Starline cry for joy at the sight of Eggman's latest crime against humanity in PS5 graphics.

Surge and Kit... I don't know. I like their concept, I really do. I like their identity crises and how they become aware that everything they think, know and believe is a fabrication: their mind state must be utter agony. It's just that I don't think they'd fit in a Sonic game, and overall I'm torn about their personalities: yes, they're deliberate caricatures, but they're still caricatures and I find them annoying, especially Surge who is such a tryhard and not in an endearing way like Infinite. (I'd so redesign Surge if I could, at the very least remove those stupid shark teeth)

Also I never watched DBZ but I know that they're inspired by Android 17 and 18, so... there you go, I guess?

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beevean · 1 year ago

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Man, IDW really must be doing not so bueno for them to already bring back S(co)urge and Kit after the last time we saw them was a literal "I must go my planet needs me" moment

It took them six months and one measly filler arc, comepletely forgettable were it not for the ship bait, to announce their epic comeback. By the time they'll actually appear, delays notwithstanding, not even a year will be passed.

And now they're going to intersect with the Silver Is A Dumbass Duo arc. Yay. What joy.

But seriously, what are they doing here? Did they take their nap and decided that they want to commit mischief again? If I had any hope left I would think that they'll finally complete their character arc and learn to forge their own identities... but yeah.

(also I don't trust Amy's presence in the Cover A. I don't even see it as ship bait, but I stg if they give her a Forced SA2 Moment of her redeeming Surge...)

#fans don't look

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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279photo Studio/Shutterstock For restaurant owners reopening their doors in a depressed economy, the “interest” on these loans can be steep Everything was still more or less normal in San Francisco when Reem Assil opened a second location of her bakery, Reem’s California, in early March. Just a week later, San Francisco issued a shelter-in-place order in response to the coronavirus pandemic — a necessary precaution that, for Assil, led to a devastating drop in sales when she needed them most. “We had to figure out, originally, how to go from one to two locations,” Assil tells Eater. “And then it was how to save two locations in different ways.” Assil initially encouraged her customers, especially regulars who frequented the bakery’s Oakland location, to purchase gift cards to keep both bakeries afloat. “The gift card strategy made sense for us in the beginning, because we know our business thrives off the regulars that go there,” she says. Facing massive losses in foot traffic and sales, restaurateurs across the country have turned to gift cards as an emergency stopgap measure. For customers who miss their favorite restaurants, buying a gift card is a way of showing support for local businesses without getting anything in return — at least for now. Well-meaning volunteers have compiled lists of restaurants offering gift cards to make up for lost revenue; companies have made headlines for purchasing tens — or hundreds — of thousands of dollars in restaurant gift cards and distributing them to their employees. But as some cities even gear up to reopen in the coming weeks, Assil and others in her position are quickly discovering the limitations of the gift card strategy. “There’s only so much cash flow you can get from gift cards,” Assil says. Initially, gift card sales brought in $500 to $1,000 a day, but that revenue quickly plateaued. “We need that money now for the cash flow, but we’ll also need it when we reopen our doors at a full capacity and have to rehire folks and get all that up and running.” Gift cards essentially function as no-interest microloans — small low-interest loans, usually considered a form of philanthropy. Instead of traditional banks or nonprofit creditors, though, pandemic gift cards serve as loans from customers to restaurant owners. Those loans come due whenever social-distancing measures are relaxed and a customer elects to redeem. In the short term, gift cards can be lifesaving for cash-strapped restaurants: They can drive enough revenue to close out a payroll cycle or be used toward rent. Gift cards may give restaurant owners an immediate sense of security, but ultimately, they could also mean less cash flow down the road — especially once restaurants reopen and people decide to redeem the gift cards they purchased. For restaurant owners looking to reopen their doors in a depressed economy, and after months of financial strain, the “interest” on these loans can be steep. “People’s incomes and livelihoods are all over the place,” Valeria Taylor, the owner of Loba Pastry and Coffee in Chicago, told Eater. “We’re kind of a luxury item — coffee and pastry are not necessities. That’s what makes it a grim outlook at the end of this.” After Illinois instituted a shelter-in-place order, Taylor closed up shop for two weeks despite her bakery being considered an essential business. The goal was to reevaluate how to stay open in the long run, she says, and she initially encouraged customers to purchase gift cards to help keep the business afloat. “I didn’t know how long I was going to be closed. The way I explained it to people was that the gift cards were going to be helpful — they were an immediate Band-Aid,” she says. “They were going to help me finish a regular payroll period for now and have something to look forward to in the future.” Taylor says the gift cards helped her make payroll while the bakery was closed, but she stopped promoting them after just one day. Part of the problem was that she didn’t have a pre-existing gift card infrastructure. Instead, customers sent her the funds via Venmo. “I don’t really do gift cards regularly,” she says. “The gift cards that we had, they were just gift certificates we would write in.” There’s also the issue of staying open for much longer. Most of the bakery’s income came from regulars — people who would pick up a coffee and pastry on their way to work in the mornings. Now that everyone is either working from home or completely out of work, that customer base has dried up. “I didn’t promote [the gift cards] after the first time I posted on Instagram because I was very uncertain about the future of the shop altogether,” Taylor says. “A gift card is almost like a promise that we will be open again, and I don’t know if that’s going to happen. We’re open for now, but I don’t think this is over — and there’s no guarantee we’re going to survive this if no aid is given to us.” People who want to support their favorite restaurants by buying gift cards may be out of luck if the business ends up closing for good, and restaurant owners may not want to take the risk of angering their former customers by selling gift cards they don’t know they’ll be able to fulfill given the circumstances. A 2010 consumer protection rule imposed limits on gift card fees and expiration dates, but customers have little recourse if the restaurant or business that issues their gift card shuts down altogether. Small local chains are also feeling the squeeze. Jason Wang, the CEO of New York City mainstay Xi’an Famous Foods, told Eater the government solutions proposed thus far — including low- or no-interest loans — have been lacking. “[W]hat’s lost is lost, it’s not like we in the restaurant industry can get back the lost sales that we missed ever. That time has passed, and we will forever carry the lull on our financials,” Wang said via email. Xi’an isn’t offering gift cards at all, Wang said, because it doesn’t have an active gift card system, “nor any staff to implement one.” Instead, the chain has come up with other ways to raise revenue, including selling its chile oil packs online. Wang said Xi’an sold $27,000 worth of chile oil packs the first weekend alone, $8,000 of which covered shipping. The chain will soon roll out “a limited release of noodle meal-kits” so people can recreate its dishes in their homes, he said. Assil, too, has come up with new ways to keep her restaurants afloat as the pandemic continues. Reem’s has begun selling merch, and the bakery’s Oakland location has fully shifted to a commissary kitchen model, where nonprofit organizations like World Central Kitchen order meals in bulk and distribute them to people in need. Though the commissary kitchen meals are being sold more or less at cost, the partnership is providing enough revenue to keep some people working. The merch, meanwhile, is a more secure source of cash flow than gift cards. The costs are both fixed and up-front: restaurant owners have to pay for supplies and, in some cases, shipping, but there are no additional expenses down the line. The bakery’s San Francisco location has also introduced new menu items designed by employees, with the profits benefiting the businesses’ employee relief fund. “We’re brainstorming other strategies beyond gift cards that don’t rely on this existing model,” Assil says. “Because it’s like, we don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of this. We hit this sobering reality check somewhere in the middle of all this that we may not go back to the way things were, and pretending that it’s going to be business as usual after this doesn’t feel like a very sustainable way of galvanizing support.” Still, other restaurant owners have embraced gift cards, even though they acknowledge they aren’t a cure-all. “It’s not a lasting solution — it’s just one thing we can do,” says Ravi Kapur, the chief owner of Liholiho Yacht Club in San Francisco. “Yes, it’s not perfect. If everybody came in the day we opened and the only guests in the gift cards restaurant were using gift cards, yeah, that’d be an issue. But we’re not planning for that to happen.” Kapur says Liholiho had high gift card sales even before the pandemic and saw a surge immediately after San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order was announced in mid-March. The restaurant is currently offering customers 25 percent off all gift cards. For Kapur, gift card sales are both practical and symbolic. “It showed that people wanted to support in some way and didn’t know how,” he says. Once the restaurant does reopen, the funds brought in by the gift cards will serve as initial runway. But ultimately, they’re a show of goodwill that will help keep his restaurant on “life support.” Assil agrees. “It’s more symbolic than anything else, people buying gift cards,” she says. They bring in much-needed cash flow, but they’re more of a sign that a restaurant has a dedicated following than a guaranteed source of income in a worsening economic climate. “The gift cards are not going to save us,” Kapur says. “When we come out on the other side of this, in some form, we’re not going to be like, ‘Wow, we’re in such a good position because of the gift cards sales.’ It’s like, ‘We’re not in a worse-off position.’” Gaby Del Valle is a freelance reporter who primarily covers immigration and labor. Her work has appeared in Vox, The Nation, The Baffler, and other publications. She’s the co-founder of BORDER/LINES, a weekly newsletter about immigration policy. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3fj6jKS

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