- There he is.

I don't know, maybe, you may know his face, but you know his name for sure.

That's Tim McLoone, musician, entertainer, humanitarian, owner of a whole range, what, is it 10 McLoone restaurants?

- We have 10.

We do have 10 restaurants (laughs).

Not all of which are making money, by the way, so just- - We'll talk about that in a second.

Also, Tim, let me do this, on a personal note, as someone who has, goes to a lot of Seton Hall basketball games, you are the voice.

- I am the Arena voice, that's true.

- At Prudential.

How long have you been doing that?

- I'm not sure, but I think it was in '99, I think that's when I left the Nets and went over to Seton Hall, so I think since 1999.

And it's the most fun you can have for the, one of the first, the first big time sporting event I ever saw, I'm old enough, as I mentioned, but I went to Ebbets Field and I saw the Dodgers play the Phillies, so I'm old, I'm that old.

But the next thing I ever went to was the Seton Hall basketball game.

'cause I grew up in South Orange and into Old Walsh Gym.

I believe the year was 1957 or '58.

- Was Richie Regan playing?

- Not playing.

He was coaching.

- He was coaching already.

- Yeah.

Not, not quite yet, actually.

It was Honey Russell was the coach then.

He was about to retire and Richie took over.

- Yeah, a lot of history there.

Tim, is the PA announcer for those games.

All good.

Hey Tim, do us a favor.

Jump into this right away.

Your restaurants are all over the place, and you said some are making money, some are not.

Describe for us from your perspective, the state, I know it's a more complex question, answer than my question, the state of the restaurant industry in the state of New Jersey is... - Well, I think it's healthy.

I do think it's healthy.

You have to be on your toes now.

Things have changed a lot.

Not because of the pandemic, it had already happened.

We're in our 35th year.

I think I started in 19, I guess 36, 1987 I opened up the Rum Runner in Seabright and it's still there.

It's a new building because Sandy washed it out into the river.

Part of the restaurant is still in the river if anyone wants to visit it.

But we, back then, there wasn't as much competition.

We were one of the first ones actually to put in outside dining, 'cause we weren't making it.

And I saw all these cars parked on the river, looking at the water for whatever reasons, and we put a deck on there and it filled up immediately.

So we saw that.

But the pandemic did change everything in that there was that period of time for a couple of years, when a lot of people were on enhanced unemployment.

They weren't working and they in some cases had more money than they'd ever had.

And so every night was Saturday.

So Tuesday night, "What do you want to do?"

"Uh, let's go out to eat."

It was crazy.

And we actually prospered through that time once we were allowed to go indoors, and opened the bars up.

When the bars were closed, we couldn't make any money.

But once they went inside, it was incredible.

But now that that's gone away, and the PPP is all over with, and all the rest of it, and unemployment has gone back to its norms, we're back to the norms, which is, it's pretty quiet on Monday through Thursday.

A little better on Friday, overwhelming on Saturday and Sunday.

But we're now 50% weather dependent again, which is where we used to be.

Now we're weather dependent.

And it's been a rocky, June was rocky, you know, with weather.

And lately it's been storms and the rest.

- We're taping it toward the end of July, 2023.

Hey Tim, real quick.

I wanna do liquor license in just a second.

But how important was the government money, particularly federal money, state money as well during COVID?

- Well, you know, there's an old joke that one of the worst things you can hear, is that "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

(Tim laughs) But if it hadn't been for PPP, you and I would be talking now about, do you really miss being in the restaurant business?

We would've gone- - You would've gone out of business, Tim?

- We wouldn't have made it.

We wouldn't have come close.

On March 17th, St. Patrick's Day ironically, I laid off 700 people, including my wife.

And- (Tim laughs) - What year?

Is it, are you talking '21?

- Yes.

No, '20.

It was '20, right?

- '20.

'20, yes.

- When the whole thing started.

- Yes.

- We laid everybody off.

And honestly, I'm the most optimistic person most people would ever leave.

- You sure are.

- And I went into a shell.

I couldn't see the path.

And if it hadn't been PPP money, there would've been no path.

PPP one, got us to where we could start hiring people back.

PPP two, thank goodness, got us back to where we could start serving outdoors and partially indoors.

And then there was another one called, the Restaurant Recovery Fund.

That was the last (indistinct) and that was the one that enabled us to get back to full-time and hire everybody back and the whole deal.

And thank goodness for it, you know.

But the business model has changed dramatically.

This is the first time, like we went to a, our minimum wage in the building now, is $16 an hour.

You could come in never having even been in a restaurant in your life.

You could come in not speaking English.

You could come in with any number of reasons, no skills.

And you're gonna start at $16 an hour.

And to be honest with you, I'm happy for it.

I regret now not being more alert to the fact that we were exploiting people.

We were forcing them into that sort of traditional situation.

You're a dishwasher, you're a cleaner, you're cutting lettuce in the back or something, and you're making eight, nine, $10 an hour.

So when I leave the restaurant at the end of the night, and I go down to the 7-11, and I see you, the same person, stuffing newspapers to make it go.

It was not possible.

Now it's $16 an hour to start.

It's something of a living wage.

Nobody's gettin' rich, but, it's the first time that the low earners in our industry had leverage.

- Tim, shift gears for a second.

Liquor licenses.

You are, you are not in favor of Governor Murphy's liquor license reform effort.

First of all, what is that reform effort?

Why are you against it?

Because you represent an awful lot of folks in your industry, please.

- Yeah.

Well, in a nutshell, they're looking to revamp what are always referred to as archaic rules.

And it's absolutely true.

It goes way back to prohibition.

- To get a liquor license.

To get a liquor license.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

To get a liquor license.

I understand that.

The first push, and I agree with this part of it, is that there's a lot of pocket licenses out there.

And what that means is that somebody buys a license and then sticks it in their pocket and doesn't use it.

And that's in many cases, to keep from, to keep competition down.

So one of the things is like, use it or lose it.

Okay, you bought a liquor license you've got three years or five years to activate it.

That makes sense to me.

I think the fact that it's I think one license per every 3000 people in a town.

Okay.

Or five, whatever it is, lower that, lower that, go ahead.

But do not make them ubiquitous where everybody's got a license.

And our primary reason is we played by the rules.

The very first liquor license I bought in Seabright was $300,000.

- What's the 750 grand in Montgomery?

You paid $750,000 for the liquor license in Montgomery?

- Yep.

Montgomery.

We paid 650 in Asbury Park.

And the problem that no one has talked about, and I am sure that I will manage to get the word to Governor Murphy, is that the banks don't like this.

My liquor licenses are pledged against our mortgages.

And if those liquor license values go from 750,000 in that case to 20,000, the bank's gonna say, you know, you're not keeping up to your agreements.

And your, you know, your loan to value will just change.

- I wanna, we're gonna have Tim in another segment.

Do me a favor Team, can we put up Holiday Express, the website?

Look, gimme 30 seconds on Holiday Express, because it is absolutely the best.

Please, Tim.

- Well, we started in '93, and our goal is that we provide music and entertainment, and really what sounds a little bit too much, the gift of human kindness to people.

In November and December, if they didn't see us, they would get little or no attention during holiday time.

So it's long-term residential, psychiatric facilities homeless shelters, soup kitchens, the like.

- It's music, it's entertainment.

- Yeah.

We have 115 professional musicians.

We'll do a hundred events between November 6th and December 24th, Christmas Eve.

It's our 30th year.

It's pretty amazing that we were able to do that that so many people had, it just touched everybody and it's the best thing we've all ever done.

- Yeah.

And I've seen them many times.

Tim, you and your colleagues with Holiday Express doing great work.

Hey my friend, I'm looking forward to seeing you soon down at Prudential, and you're doing great work.

Thank you Tim.

See you down on Jersey Shore.

- Thank you.

Always a pleasure my friend.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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