To all our valued and loyal customers,
We have shut down and will continue to follow all government request. Our reaction to the Mayors first order was because it didn’t create a fair playing field for small business, most of our restaurants in our group are smaller and there would be no way we could comply, we would just have to shut down. We reached out to one of the Mayors reps. to voice our concern about this and actually suggested that it would be better to shut down all restaurants and bars for the safety of the community and so we could be eligible for some kind of relief for our employees and all small business or if she could modify the rules a little bit so most of our places could operate and not have to start laying off employees. We do take the coronavirus pandemic very seriously and when the Mayor responded to us on twitter we immediately shut down on Monday morning before the announcement of the full shut down was ever made, we never violated any order. I agree it probably was not the right thing to post and I sincerely apologize to everyone. This was never about our bottom line or profits it was about trying to keep our employees employed. We hope everyone in DC stays healthy and we all make it through this safely. Everyone makes mistakes and I made a big one and for that I have to own it, reflect and learn from it. This is not going to be easy for anyone and were all in this together.
Sincerely,
Tom Johnson
Hill Restaurant Group
