COVID-19: Pillsbury’s Anna Graves Quoted in Bloomberg Law on Restaurant Industry Practice

“It’s been crazy here. We’ve been running nonstop. I worked until 5:30 a.m. this morning working to help our clients understand new government requirements,” said Anna Graves, a partner and co-leader of the restaurant, food and beverage industry group at Pillsbury.

“There are so many conflicting issues that it’s been a morass for clients to make sure they can be certified,” Graves said. Similar legal challenges are on the horizon, she said, as restaurant and other hospitality groups strive to meet the specific requirements of state and local mandates on re-openings and their liability if employees or customers come down with the virus.

At the same time, Graves noted, the pandemic has sparked new twists on routine issues like leasing restaurant space. It’s frequent now for clients to ask: “Do you negotiate a rent deferral or holiday?” she said. “Most big landlords have spent time getting the right mix of commercial tenants, so they are willing to negotiate.”

"Other novel legal matters have been whether restaurant owners should furlough employees, reduce their hours or take other options," Graves added. "Restaurants are also trying to figure out the legal ramifications of first-time issues such as how to protect customers and employees from the contagion, including adding glass barriers, wearing masks and using disposable paper menus."

“Every situation is starkly different,” she said. “There is no shortage of things to figure out. It’s been crazy with so many issues to navigate.”

Some of the most abundant work for lawyers representing restaurants may come from business interruption insurance litigation which Graves described as “huge, huge, huge.”