Fayetteville Independent Restaurant Alliance

(updated 11.17.25)

The Fayetteville Independent Restaurant Alliance was founded in 2020 in response to the COVID crisis and restaurant closures. Today we continue to raise funds to assist local hospitality professionals through the HERO fund and engage with the Fayetteville restaurant community by supporting workforce development programs and providing resources to local restaurants and their workforce. 

We support independently owned restaurants and all hospitality professionals working for any hospitality business in Fayetteville, Arkansas (whether their employer is an independent restaurant or not!)

The Hospitality Emergency Relief Opportunity fund helps us to ensure our local workforce stays safe and housed through a crisis or emergency. We have disbursed over $143,000 since March of 2020! 

Why do people need help? Workers in our industry are notoriously under-insured and rarely have savings set back in case of emergency. With the local housing crisis and continuous rise in cost of living, illness or unexpected emergencies can quickly result in utilities being cut off or risk of eviction. 

Wait, there’s a housing crisis? Due to vast population growth and a lack of housing units, the cost of housing has continued to rise in Fayetteville. In 2024, the mayor assembled a Housing Crisis Task Force to address the issue - but there are not enough resources to quickly assist the individuals who need help now. You can read more about the housing crisis on the City of Fayetteville website.

How does this affect the local small business community? Outside of the obvious strain this puts on local businesses trying to hire and retain talent, small businesses rely on other small businesses and small business employees to generate revenue! Research from the National Association of State Procurement Officials shows that when we spend our money locally, it can have a multiplier effect. But when that small business workforce is unable to stay local, we lose that multiplier effect.

What kind of emergencies warrant support? We do not limit ourselves on what type of emergency warrants assistance from the HERO fund, but we most often see medical emergencies (emergency surgeries, cancer diagnosis, unexpected disabilities), layoffs, or illness that interrupts an individual's ability to work for a week or more in our applications.

What happens when someone applies? We confirm they have worked for a local hospitality business in the past thirty days, discuss their emergency, and prioritize paying rent or mortgage payments first (although we do help with other bills when it makes sense to!) We may post about individuals from time to time to ask for donations for a specific effort. Otherwise, any funding will be set aside in a "rainy day fund" for our local hospitality professionals.

FIRA is a community of small business owners that recognize our responsibility to take care of our workforce when other benefits and assistance are not accessible to them. Our local restaurants and bars are an irreplaceable part of Fayetteville's culture and economy. We believe an empowered workforce is an empowered small business community - because without our staff, we wouldn't be here. 

Thanks for reading our story! We'd love to hear from you at info@fayira.org if you have any ideas, questions, or just want to talk about love for our local hospitality businesses.