Yesterday before the US House Committee on Financial Affairs, Minnesota Restauranteur Brian Ingram spoke about his experiences running restaurants in the Twin Cities, specifically Minneapolis from both before the pandemic and George Floyd's death and to the present. Ingram starts off praising the community for all of their support but quickly tosses the City of Minneapolis under the bus so to speak by calling it a 'ghost town' and stating that he was offered a restaurant recently in Minneapolis for 'one penny' and he flatly turned it down, based on his past experiences of owning businesses their.

You can hear his full 5 minutes below speaking on his experiences, and if you start at 31:12, you can start to hear him discussing how things have changed since the pandemic and the safety issues he has faced, including having the "same criminal robbing and stealing from his seven restaurants" and being "back on the streets in 24-hours"

Ingram and his wife Sarah operate Purpose Driven Restaurants which according to their website, "was formed in 2019 as an act of good faith by the Ingram family. It has weathered a pandemic; fed health care workers, protesters, and the unemployed; served as a free community kitchen and food bank; established a non-profit (Give Hope) to benefit restaurant workers in the Twin Cities metro area. Since 2019, Give Hope has donated more than 300,000 free meals, and 2 million pounds of food and gifted $225,000 in relief grants to local families in need."

Hearing all of the things that he has gone through over the last several years as a business owner was tough to hear. From active crime to losing a cook to a Fentanyl overdose, it's just overall a tough 5 minutes to stomach.

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