We finally opened our restaurant after the COVID-19 shutdown — a day later, it was damaged during the protests. Here's why we still stand in solidarity with protesters.

• Roopa Mosuganti is a longtime Floridian who owns a restaurant called Jai Ho Royale Indian Cuisine with her husband in Tampa, Florida.
• When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they had to furlough all of their staff and switched to takeout and delivery only.
• Their restaurant reopened for dine-in on May 29 — and the very next day, parts of their business were destroyed and looted during the citywide protests surrounding George Floyd's death.
• This experience has been particularly hard on Mosuganti and her family, but they say they stand in solidarity with the protesters and will continue to support their community.

My name is Roopa Mosuganti and I've been living in Florida since 2006. I currently live in Tampa, Florida with my husband, Raman, and my 10-month-old son, Dhruv Noah. We've owned the Jai Ho Royale Indian Cuisine Restaurant for the past 10 years.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been incredibly devastating for our family business

When the pandemic first hit, we weren't sure how it would impact our business. We didn't know how long it would take to contain the community spread of the virus. In the first few days of the stay-at-home order set by our mayor, we received a lot of takeout orders through Amazon Prime, Uber Eats, and DoorDash. Soon after, however, business became really slow, and we had to furlough a lot of our staff.

It's been really hard managing a small business during this crisis. We went through financial issues with renewing our lease last year, and right when we were starting to recover from it, we came upon this crisis. Not only do we as a family rely on this business as our primary source of income, but so do our workers. Many of our workers haven't been able to find other work during the pandemic-economy and also have to live on their savings.

Moreover, we did not receive any small business grants or loans from the city nor state, despite applying for funds, grants, and loan programs, as they were maxed out with funding. My husband and I have been putting whatever little money we have back into our business to keep it afloat during this time.

As we had a lot of food inventory in our restaurant, we supported the community by feeding healthcare workers in a local retirement facility and mothers with babies in the NICU at our local hospital.

From late March to mid-May, our bills were piling up and we had to start paying them because the state reopened. We were scared to reopen with the virus still spreading, but ultimately decided to do so, adhering to social distancing guidelines to keep customers safe. All of our employees coming back to work would also wear masks and gloves.

We reopened on Friday, May 29, but then had to close the very next day

On Monday, May 25, we learned about the horrifying death of an innocent black man, George Floyd. We heard how his last statements were "I can't breathe, I can't breathe," and how he was a victim of police brutality. This was an unjust, horrible act, and our thoughts and prayers are with George Floyd's family.

We knew the Tampa community was going to take action to call for justice for George Floyd, but we were not sure to what extent. We continued our plans of reopening on Friday, May 29, 2020, where a limited number of customers showed up. We anticipated growth would be slow and expected a few more folks over the weekend rather than the work week.

On Saturday, May 30 we received a call from our employee around 5 p.m. (right before we would open for the evening at 5:30 p.m.) that shops around our plaza were closing down as it was on the protest route. Local business owners in our strip mall area feared that their business could be damaged, looted into, or even burned like some were at the Minneapolis protest on Thursday night. When we spoke with our employee, we told him to stay safe and close down like the other businesses were doing. He and the other employees evacuated the restaurant immediately. Unfortunately, we did not have the time nor the funds to properly close down and protect all of our property. That evening, our last employee simply locked the door, turned the lights off, and left.

At 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 30, my husband and I went to the shopping mall plaza with our 10-month-old son to check on our restaurant. After following the news and the media, we knew that some businesses in our area had been broken into. The pictures were frightening, as doors and windows were broken with glass shattered all over the place. Upon arriving at the plaza, we found that our restaurant was okay. However, places like the AT&T store were severely damaged. Police officers were handling the situation — peacefully from what we saw — and blocking the shops. At this point, we thought it was all under control and did not fear any looting or future destruction.

Later that night, we heard a shoe store in our area got burned. Then we saw our store the following day.

Around midnight on Saturday, May 30, we heard the Champs store in our plaza was being looted and set on fire. We did not anticipate this at all, as we thought the police took control of the situation. We grew very worried and decided to check our store immediately the next morning.

When we visited the shopping plaza, it was a grave sight. Many stores were severely vandalized and looted, and three suffered irreparable fire damage. Fortunately, we did not have any structural damages to our store, but all of our inventory was destroyed due to power loss in the building because of the fires. Some of our equipment, such as food trolleys and serving bowls, were also stolen. Our entire mall is now closed due to electrical issues because of the fires. The total of our expenses including rent, electrical bills, loss of produce, and lost revenue amounts to $30,000. We are not sure how we will make it in the coming days once we have the permission to operate as we have no funds available.

It was sad at first to see how our South Fowler strip mall was damaged in these riots. Businesses like Saigon Bay and more were broken into and completely demolished. This is our livelihood. We have been serving the Tampa community and people from all walks of life for 10 years now. Regardless of the situation, we stand in solidarity with the Black community and the protesters. While we do not know who or what was exactly behind this, we are moving forward with hope, resilience, and community. We will move forward to recover from the damages and make our restaurant a more safe and inclusive place. Black lives matter: We uphold this in both our business and our personal lives.

We're not sure when we can reopen our restaurant, but in the meantime we will continue to serve our community

It has been hard to navigate after the destruction of our property. Rents have been deferred but are still due. Electric bills have also piled up. We thought that we would alleviate some of this financial burden from reopening our business this past weekend, but that didn't happen. Now, we are working with local public safety officials to make sure our building passes all of the safety checks before we can open up.

In the meantime, we are donating our food inventory to nearby community organizations and churches. trying to give back as much as we can. While we do not support the violence and harming small businesses, we do stand in solidarity with the black community and are committed to helping as much as we can.

Buildings can be replaced but lives cannot. With the support of our community, I am hopeful our restaurant will be able to recover. We are grateful for the outpouring of love everyone has given us in the past couple of days. For all of those who have helped us and are continuing to help us, we are extremely grateful.

A customer has created a GoFundMe page to support Roopa, her family, and their restaurant.