Celebrity Chef Tom Colicchio is pushing for Congress to grant funding to independent restaurants around the country.

Colicchio, who is from Elizabeth, says that he had to lay off hundreds of workers from his restaurants because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is unclear when restaurants can reopen to offer dine-in service. But Colicchio says that the bigger question will be when will the public be comfortable going out to eat again?

“When is someone going to be comfortable walking into a restaurant and the bartender has a mask on, servers have a mask on when we’re going behind you and we open the door and we’re using sanitizer to sanitize it. So, this is more about the psychology of people coming in and congregating,” he says.

The Independent Restaurant Coalition was formed to push Congress to act. The coalition says that 11 million independent restaurant employees will lose their jobs if something isn’t done.