Potbelly Corporation is a publicly traded restaurant chain with almost 500 locations. Headquartered in Chicago, Potbelly is best known for their submarine sandwiches and “olden time” décor.
Despite having around 7,000 employees, Potbelly applied for and secured a $10 million forgivable Paycheck Protection loan intended for small businesses from JPMorgan Chase.
Just four days before Potbelly publicly secured their loan they paid an exec a $100,000 bonus even though the company announced on March 30 that it would temporarily reduce senior executive pay by 25 percent due to the pandemic.
It should be noted that they returned the money after publicity regarding this loan went viral.