Greg LaPat last year felt it was time, maybe past time, to rebuild his 20-year-old restaurant.
He wanted a customer’s kind of place _ a happy, snappy place _ complete with flat-screen TVs, an indoor playground, double-feed drive-through and larger restrooms.
The project cost $2.1 million, which LaPat will split with McDonald’s Corp. But it was worth it, he said. His dining and kitchen space went from 2,400 square feet to 5,000. He immediately saw a 30 percent jump in sales. And during the renovation, Jan. 19 through May 20, LaPat retained all of his 30-member main crew.
How?
He loaned them to the hospital, community college, elementary schools, missions and other nonprofit organizations in town, all the while paying them their same salaries.
“If I’d furloughed them, I absolutely would have lost them to other businesses,” LaPat said. Most contribute to the support of their households, he said. Among 57 full-time and part-time employees, the average pay is close to $9 an hour; nearly $16 an hour for managers and others.
Because he continued paying his loaned employees, LaPat can claim a charitable deduction on his taxes for the gross salary, payroll taxes and benefits he paid during the rebuilding period, said David Greenwell, a certified public accountant in Oklahoma City. But tax breaks weren’t his incentive, he said. Employee retention was his goal.
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