OPERATIONS
RESTAURANTS TAKE THEIR CASE TO CONGRESS AS MIDTERM ELECTIONS LOOM The National Restaurant Association is striking a confident tone on pressing issues like swipe fee relief, immigration and tariffs. One reason: Most people love the businesses it represents.
T his can’t be an easy time to lobby Con- gress. Divisions between the parties seem to make compromise impossible. The U.S. has started bombing Iran, and the president has threatened to veto all legisla- tion until a bill on voting identification, or the SAVE America Act, passes. Oh, and there’s a midterm election coming up. And yet Michelle Korsmo, the CEO of the National Restaurant Association, and the group’s EVP of public affairs Sean Kennedy, both seemed confident as they sent nearly 500 restaurant operators and state association di- rectors to meetings at the Capitol last week. That’s not to say that the association expects everything to go its way. The group’s three main legislative priorities this year include credit card swipe fee reform, immigration reform and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the treaty formerly known as NAFTA. The association is going up against the well-financed financial services industry when it comes to swipe fees. Immigration hasn’t been reformed in four decades for a reason. And the trade talk runs up right against President Trump’s signature policy strategies, tariffs. Yet the association believes it has an ad- vantage that crosses party lines that almost no other industry has: People love what they represent. Just about everybody has a favorite restaurant. And when members of Congress meet with operators or other representatives they always ask how the local restaurants are performing. And so when Korsmo and Kennedy sent those operators out to those meetings, their pri- mary instruction was simple. “We always start with the fact that nine out of 10 Americans love restaurants, so that’s a win,” Korsmo said in an interview. “Every mem- ber of Congress understands how important restaurants are to strong, healthy, happy com- munities. They understand the great scale of the restaurant industry in terms a small entrepre- neur that has created something that means a lot to their neighborhood.” That is not the only number that the group touts. The association says that 42% of restau- rants are losing money, a function of the num- ber of small-scale operators in the industry. The median pre-tax income at restaurants is just 3%
JONATHAN MAZE
JONATHAN.MAZE@INFORMA.COM
10
RESTAURANT BUSINESS APRIL 2026
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