MILWAUKEE, Wis. The American Rescue Plan included a $28.6 billion lifeline for restaurants, but business owners are already worried the money will run out before they get any aid.

Bounce Milwaukee is one of those businesses. In 2014, Becky Cooper-Clancy opened a party space with laser tag, rock climbing, ax throwing, arcades, bounce houses and a restaurant and bar. Think Chuck E. Cheese, but locally owned, with a community justice mission and fun for kids and adults alike.

In 2019, the business made more than $1 million. Last year, by attempting a takeout pizza and parking lot drive-in movie business, it barely scraped together $200,000. It has been fully shut down since August, volunteering its building to a mutual aid organization.

Cooper-Clancy was able to get around $150,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, and she took out an Economic Injury Disaster Relief Loan. She and her husband stopped paying for their personal medical insurance just to save a couple hundred dollars per month. The bank account has run dry and she has twice the debt she had when she opened the business.

The day the Restaurant Revitalization Fund launched last week, Cooper-Clancy found herself refreshing the Small Business Administration website page to submit her application.

If we are approved for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund I think we will be OK and we will make it through. If we dont get that, because its really underfunded, I think we have just delayed the inevitable, Cooper-Clancy said. Its been weird to have to come to terms with the idea of closing up the business and giving up on this baby that weve nurtured for nearly seven years. Coming to terms with that and then having this new burst of maybe it will work out after all has been a huge roller coaster.

The Restaurant Revitalization Fund part of the American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Joe Biden in March restores restaurants lost revenue during the pandemic up to $10 million (or $5 million per physical location). As long as businesses use the money before 2023, they dont have to pay it back. Women- and minority-owned businesses are prioritized for the funds in the first 21 days.

Within the first three days, the Biden administration announced that the program had received more than 180,000 applications. By this week, the SBA had approved more than 16,000 businesses for funds.

Already, restaurants are warning its not enough money. And the administration seems aware that demand is bigger than the fund itself.

In a webinar with the U.S. Black Chambers about the money, Patrick Kelley, who runs the SBAs Office of Capital Access, made clear that there is probably not going to be enough funds, in all likelihood, for the demand thats out there.

Please apply so we can send a strong statement to Congress and the administration that there is demand and hopefully we will act as a country as we did over the last year to provide additional funds, Kelley told the participants.

The fund was designed to course-correct after the messy rollout of the Paycheck Protection Program, the forgivable business loans passed under the CARES Act last year. The government has given out more than $780 billion under the PPP program to date; the latest extension of the program under Biden has already run out of money .

Small businesses, and restaurant owners in particular, are quick to say that the PPP program was flawed. The quick rollout left many banks in the dark, unable to help clients. The rules around the loans kept changing. And many businesses couldnt access the program, disproportionately leaving minority- and women-owned businesses to fall through the cracks. Large corporations and businesses received the majority of the funding .

Even those who were able to get PPP money say it was a slog.

We just needed direct aid much sooner and it was really difficult to stay afloat in that way and have so much uncertainty and chaos, Cooper-Clancy said. The first PPP loan, I think I spent three or four full days trying to get the information I needed and get it through our bank, and no one had any answers.

Part of the battle now is ensuring restaurant owners know a new fund is available.

A.J. Dixon, chef and owner of Milwaukee restaurant Lazy Susan MKE, has taken it upon herself to educate business owners around her, hosting webinars on the Restaurant Revitalization Fund for women- and Black-owned businesses.

Before Wisconsin had stay-at-home orders, Dixon told her employees to start applying for unemployment insurance just to get into the system early in case shed have to shut down. Now her message to Congress is that this cant be the last lifeline. And, she said, because relief came so late, restaurants are digging out of a bigger hole than expected.