Barstool Fund Helps Famed 45-Year-Old Skokie Kosher Diner

SKOKIE, IL — A family-owned Kosher diner in Skokie received a financial lifeline from the Barstool Fund, a crowdfunded effort by to support small businesses struggling due to COVID-19.

Ken's Diner, 3353 Dempster St., is one of at least 190 businesses supported by the fund since it was launched last month by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

This month, the restaurant began receiving $10,000 a month to use for payroll, allowing its co-owner brothers to keep paying staff and catch up on expenses.

Ken Hechtman, 67, has co-owned the business since 1976 — back when it was a grocery store and deli called Kosher City.

Hechtman would go on to buy out his partners in 1981, shifting the restaurant into a classic sit-down diner with tiled flooring and booths while keeping the kosher cuisine.

"When you're around 45 years, you become infamous," said Ken Hechtman, a Skokie native who had planned to retire later this year. "That doesn't mean that you're good, that means that you're infamous."

Since the mid-1990s, Hechtman has co-owned the business with his brother, Danny. Ken Hechtman said has kept looking to to evolve and continually reevaluated his business model.

In 2018, on the advice of vegan family members, Ken's added a separate vegan kitchen that Hechtman said boosted sales by more than 20 percent.

So when the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic led to restrictions on Illinois restaurants last year, Hechtman, accepted the challenge of planning for a new business model.

"Adapting to this situation was kind of fun, because I had to rethink and redefine who I was as a business," Hechtman said, describing the need to find a way to keep the business afloat without sit-down service.

"In a way it was kind of exciting, because it gave me a dimension that I've never seen before," he added. "Going in with that attitude kept me from freaking the hell out and hitting an iceberg and sinking."

With revenues at the restaurant down by over 25 percent, its owners have not been collecting pay, instead surviving on their retirement savings, he said.

Over the summer, sales were down by close to $25,000 a month compared to the previous year, and November's second ban on indoor dining further dented what income remained.

But Ken's kept staff on board, shortening some shifts but avoiding layoffs among a crew who range in tenure from two to 30 years at the diner.

The business managed to secure a federal Paycheck Protection, or PPP, loan, which helped for a couple months, but Hechtman said he eventually found himself engaged in difficult discussions with his brother.

"My brother and I discussed a couple of time at what point do you just pull the plug and say enough is enough, so we had that discussion," Hechtman said.

"My brother, I kept having to talk him off the ledge, because he kept saying, 'Enough is enough,' 'I'm not working for free,' 'I'm not doing this for free,' 'The state doesn't care about us,' 'They're just going to let us die,'" he said. "So if it was him, it would be closed."

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In mid-December, Portnoy launched his own small business relief fund fund with a $500,000 contribution of his own money following an online challenge from Lake Forest millionaire Marcus Lemonis. Both partnered with the Virginia-based nonprofit 30 Day Fund.

More than 205,000 people have donated to the fund, adding more than $32 million to Portnoy's original contribution as of Wednesday.

In a video announcing the launch of the Barstool Fund, the outspoken sports and culture website founder said the crowdsourced effort was the best option in light of a lack of needed support from the government.

"Is it perfect? Probably not," Portnoy said at the time. "But it's better than nothing."

Small restaurants still paying their staff were able to apply to the fund for needed support. Portnoy received two videos nominating Ken's Diner, one from Ken Hechtman and one from his videographer son. Within a couple days, Portnoy called him up.

"I wasn't intending calling people necessarily," Portnoy said. "The first person we helped happened to be a bit fan of Barstool — myself. So somebody's like, 'Why don't you just call and break the news?' When I did it, they were overwhelmed with emotion, and I was like, 'Wait a minute, we've got to capture this.'"

"Because when people see it, they're putting a face to what's actually going on here," Portnoy said. "And that's why we're raising so much money, that's why we're able to help, because it really hasn't had that spotlight quite yet, I don't think, and you see the raw emotion of everyone involved".

Even with the support of the fund, Hechtman said, he and his brother will continue to be drawing $10,000 or more out of their pocket a month to keep the business afloat under current conditions.

"When a crisis happens, if you're not prepared for it, evaluate it, reevaluate it get into a position where you know what's going on right now and try to fix it. That's pretty much what I did here, and we're back in business to a certain extent," he told Skokie Patch this week, shortly after reopening to in-person service for the first time in months.

"People are too afraid to come out of their shells, so to speak, but we're doing a little bit of sit-down,” he said. “We're still doing a lot of carry-out."

Other than the PPP loan and the surprise grant from Barstool, Hechtman said Ken's Diner has not received any financial aid since the start of the pandemic. About 50 Skokie businesses received money from the state through the Business Interruption Grants program, according to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Like Portnoy, Hechtman blames political leaders for exacerbating the economic damage of the pandemic on small businesses.

"As much as we have a pandemic, so to speak, and it's horrible, and it's difficult to navigate around, the politics are the hardest part of what we're going through right now because they're making you do things that are unjust," Hechtman said.

"That's the most frustrating part of this whole ordeal. There was no help. There was no incoming to save us, there was only this illegitimacy," he said.

"It went from: 'Let's see if we can bring the numbers down,' to 'Let's wait until there's a cure,' and hundreds of thousands of small businesses throughout this country have lost their small businesses," he added. "Thank God for guys like David Portnoy. He's a blessing. He's doing the right thing. It wasn't tough to do. You just have to use your brain and gather money."

More information is available online about Ken's Diner, how to apply for funding from the Barstool Fund or how to contribute to the fund.