A quarter of US restaurants will go out of business due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a forecast by OpenTable, which reported that total restaurant reservations and walk-in customers have fallen 95% over the previous year ending May 13.
The company tracks over 54,000 restaurants on its reservation site, which offers the ability to make online, walk-in, and phone reservations – but does not track data for take-out and deliveries, according to Bloomberg.
The company’s data shows that there are growing signs that patrons are willing to dine out again in states like Arizona and Texas where it’s allowed, though the numbers are still far below where they were last year.
Scottsdale showed the greatest improvement. It had zero reservations almost every day since March 21, but on May 13 this eased to a down 72% from reservations on the same day in 2019. The next most significant recoveries were in Houston and Phoenix. –Bloomberg
At the state-level, Florida showed the greatest statewide gain, with foot traffic only down 83% y/y after launching a phased reopening May 4 during which restaurants were allowed to operate at one-quarter capacity.
Indiana, which is now in phase two – allowing restaurants to operate at 50% of capacity – has come in second. The state is planning on a full reopening by the Fourth of July.
“Restaurants are complicated beasts,” said Steve Hafner, CEO of OpenTable parent company, Booking Holdings. “You have to order food and supplies. You have to make sure you’ve prepped the kitchen and service areas to be easily disinfected.”
According to Hafner, state unemployment benefits with the federal booster is one reason why restaurants have struggled to hire help. “A lot of people are making $1,200 a week doing nothing. That’s good pay.”
Meanwhile, restaurateur Danny Meyer – who shut down all of his 19 New York restaurants on March 13, says his dining rooms will stay closed for the foreseeable future, according to Bloomberg.
“We won’t be welcoming guests into our full-service restaurants for a very long time—probably not until there’s a vaccine,” he said, adding “There is no interest or excitement on my part to having a half-full dining room while everyone is getting their temperature taken and wearing masks, for not much money.”
“It’s very frustrating, but it’s the only safe way to go,” he added.
It’s a caution shared by fellow restaurateur Daniel Humm, who said he may not re-open Eleven Madison Park at all, and by David Chang who just announced the closing of his Chelsea restaurant Nishi and his Washington, DC, Momofuku location.
Meyer, in the meantime, is taking the first steps back into business by opening his café Daily Provisions for take out service as early as next week. The storefront, which is next to Union Square Café on East 19th St., was designed for grab-and-go coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and signature crullers. Initially, it will open for curbside pickup of breakfast items, with an expanded menu expected to follow. –Bloomberg
Meyer will likely open his Flatiron District pizza restaurant, Marta, for takeout – saying “We had been on the cusp of takeout at Daily Provisions, Marta, and Blue Smoke [the company’s barbecue spot] when we closed. It makes sense now.”
“I would think about anything that is safe and profitable. If it’s not safe, we won’t do it, we all lose,” he said, adding “Profitable matters, as well. The only way we can responsibly get back in the business of employing people is to not go out of business. It’s already incredibly hard to survive.”
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WAY to many anyway! What a shame if more individuals now regularly “socialize” at their own digs sharing both the kitchen prep and the following home-cooked meal around a diner table. Such is just one more of the endless “Blessings from the Beginning” being revealed to the jilted “corp-media/gov groupies”& ADD “dumb-phone junkies” thx to the “Gates/Fauci hoax”. Time for so many to consider more independent/self-sufficient activities that contribute REAL PRODUCTIVITY to those things a little more “essential”?
What many forget is restaurants and bars are sometimes the “glue” of a community, where locals meet, enforce old bonds and create new. Good food is shared along with face to face conversation. When these die never to come back, something big is lost.
I see a rise in the food truck industry soon, there will now be a vacuum left by brick and mortar locations closing. Food trucks were already on the rise in some locations.
In my childhood, it was the front stoop.
My son in law works for a winery and is in charge of sales for Mich, he told me this a month ago, their sales are down 10%, if they go below 15% for a month or more and they’re done.
He said 25% of Mich wineries will also fail with the restaurants, it’s one big circle isn’t it?
Waiting for a cure or vaccine ?
LMAO !
Business subsidies and forgivable loans and your enterprise did not qualify but your minimum and below minimum wage employees are getting subsidies that are better than their take home pay wow ! The question is not why should they go back to work ! It why should they work in an industry that pays so poorly that taxpayers subsidy health and rent payments for people that work for that industry !
I know you cannot raise your prices BULL SHIT ! Supplies you need go up in price you raise the price , electric power goes up you raise the price , the cost of labor for your business to operate goes up and ?OMG I’m out of business !
The top end joints will be fine. The middle corporate stuff is doomed. Diners operating sort of like speakeasies are an interesting idea. When the cashless push becomes law (later this year??) that will take all the incentive out of running a mom & pop joint.
Bottom line is we will be eating at home a lot more than most of us were. Not necessarily a bad thing, that.
The photo by Lucy Nicholson (Reuters) is amazing on many levels, as a piece of art and as a view of today’s reality.
These small businesses are not being killed by the beer flu, but by government overreaction to it because of wildly wrong projections by public health “experts”.
When will we learn to ignore these people who could not make it in the private sector?
TN Patriot
All restaurants are Taco Bell
Now I’ll never be able to open the restaurant I’d planned: House of Suet.
Right there with you. House of Haggis will never be it seems.
This article is a rosy scenario. The free money is going to push prices on the lower rungs of Maslows Hierarchy of needs way up while pushing the demand and prices for things on the top of the ladder way down.
So , the only customers will likely only be Doctors and farmers.
I would be shocked it if is ONLY 25%. It will surely be more like 50%. Meanwhile the shit fast food and big chain restaurants will be open as they have the deep pockets to comply with the fascist dictates of the local totalitarians, and the money to advertise to the panty-wetting sheeple that they will be “safe” if they come to their establishments.
25% is what – half of all the pizza & burger joints ? Good riddance. Or switch to something worth making & serving. I hope for more Indian, Thai, Caribbean or Russian to replace ’em. I don’t think there is a decent Russian place within 200 miles.
As long as we all agree that anyone selling scones should be put to death.