Small businesses across the Hudson Valley are struggling to apply for small business loans promised by the federal government. They say the process has been anything but easy.

Phil Cordero is the owner of Wappingers Falls Puerto Rican restaurant Café Con Leche, a small local business forced to cut a majority of its staff due to the shutdown.

"Ninety percent, so I have two servers that are rotating now, and I have two people in the kitchen. We're normally at 15 employees," said Cordero.

The statewide shutdown came just weeks after Cordero relocated his restaurant to a bigger facility; so when he heard about the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, loans offered by the federal government, he immediately jumped on the opportunity.

"We decided that would be best so we could bring back our staff, and that would help us to at least continue operating for the next two months," said Cordero.

But it proved to be much more difficult of a process than he anticipated.

"Several banks dropped the ball when this rolled out," said Cordero. "They weren’t ready for it; they weren’t ready for the flood of applications coming through."

With some business owners reporting site crashes when applying for the loans, Cordero says his bank didn’t upload the application until a day after it was made available, delaying how fast he could apply for the loan. He was able to submit an application, but heard that the funds had run out.

"The AP investigated and found out that 94 publicly traded companies got $365 million in small business loans from this Paycheck Protection Program, which was only supposed to be available to small businesses with under 500 employees," said Cordero.

Cordero was left wondering why some small family-owned businesses like his were left behind. Senator Chuck Schumer echoed Cordero’s frustration.

"We insisted a chunk of the money be separate from the competition with the bigger companies. You know the people, the ones that have 200, 300, 400 people and the relationship with the banks, and we got $125 billion that will go exclusively to the unbanked, to the minorities, to the rural areas, and to all of those little mom and pop stores that don't have a good banking connection and need the help," said Schumer.

Despite the challenges, Café Con Leche has stayed open offering delivery and virtually contact-less curbside pickup. But it's waiting on pins and needles, wondering if it'll be included in the second round of PPP loans from Washington.