Barstool Sports founder donates money to help New Jersey restaurant
People have strong feelings about Dave Portnoy, the opinionated founder of Barstool Sports who is famous for his man-on-the-street pizza reviews.
But since the middle of December, the creator of One Bite Pizza Reviews has raised more than $8 million to help small business who are hurting because of the pandemic.
On Dec. 24, Portnoy shared his phone call with Mark Marandola, who opened Marandola's in Bradley Beach, New Jersey, in 2017, on Barstool Sports' Facebook page. He was calling to tell the owner of the Italian restaurant he had been selected as a recipient of The Barstool Fund.
Portnoy launched the fundraising effort with Marcus Lemonis, host of CNBC television show "The Profit" and founder of The Lemon-AID Foundation, which invests in small businesses and organizations. The men each donated $500,000 to seed the fund.
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The amount of the Marandola's donation wasn't shared during the call – "I'm glad we can do a little something for you," Portnoy said – but in his application video, the restaurant owner shared that he just needed "a little help ... to stretch things out a little bit."
"We've been having issues with just getting the number of people into the restaurant," Marandola said while walking through the dining room, where one couple was dining on a Sunday evening. "Even though they're allowing us to sit 25% of our restaurant, people are so scared, they won't even come in.
"We're in a seasonal business down here, so we don't have as many people in this particular area all winter long to do the numbers," he said. "Anything that you guys can help us out with would be great."
Marandola told Portnoy that if there was money leftover that he did not need, he would return it.
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To qualify as Barstool Fund recipients, small businesses must be paying their employees, Portnoy shared when announcing the fund on Twitter. Once chosen, a business will receive a monthly check as long as it is needed.
"How much do you need to get to the next month? What can we do to make sure you stay in business until this pandemic is over?" he said. "We're going to try and save as many businesses, small business, as we can: Keep the employees getting paid, keep the owners in business, until this thing is over."
You can reach Sarah Griesemer at sgriesemer@gannettnj.com.