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The state of the restaurant industry

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Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#441

Post by zaroth »

jedberg wrote: post #410
timr wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeatedly saying "flatten the curve" isn't a response to someone saying "flatten the curve without destroying the economy when you can avoid it ". Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore...all have managed to contain this virus without kneecapping their economies. We should be following their examples. Most of the US is nowhere near a crisis point, and locking down an entire city (or worse, country) over a…

I agree, we should be following their examples. But since we aren't doing extensive free testing, and don't have a culture of sick people wearing masks and self isolating, this is the best we can do for now. Once testing becomes readily available we can look at loosening the restrictions. As the Governor of Colorado put it, saving the economy doesn't do a lot of good if everyone is dead.

That's a pretty inflammatory statement by the Governor. Everyone being alive doesn't do much good if we're all unemployed, bankrupt, and starving because supply lines broke down.

Just maybe, somewhere in the middle, Rhyme and Reason can come back home from the Mountain of Ignorance and devise a plan that keeps people safe without cratering the economy.

I'm not sure how big a role testing actually plays. Even South Korea is only testing a fraction of a percent of its populace. And many cases are asymptomatic but apparently can also still spread. So I think what we need to be doing, regardless of testing, is seriously teaching extreme personal hygiene.

As in, shuttered restaurants need to be undergoing emergency training right now on how they can re-open and provide a safe environment.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#442

Post by maximente »

ma2rten wrote: post #315
spookthesunset wrote: post #256

If this lasts more than two or three weeks, at least with out a crisp well articulated end game, things are going to go downhill very fast.

I don't see how this can be over in less than 3 months.

what do you mean by "over"? i don't see the ability to do quarantine style lockdown for >3 months myself, if that's what you meant.

there are a lot of 2nd (or >1th) order effects that i suspect will mean that people give up the ghost on flattening the curve. here are some i'm imagining myself; others probably know way more than me:

- the local restaurants are probably well on their way to having shut down. the commercial real estate they rented or owned has way lower prospects of getting picked up. so commercial landlords are hurting.

- ditto above for tourism towns, whose commercial real estate value blows up as those businesses default after 3 months of no traffic and the land sits idle. with these jobs gone, residential real estate also loses huge value. what happens to e.g. Las Vegas?

- anyone who's levered up on commercial real estate basically gets annihilated as all of that value is going to plummet.

- those who were employed and don't make enough via unemployment are going to have to split unemployment between car payments, rent, and food. landlords may be amenable to 3 month non-eviction. we will see their resolve once month 3 ends. and best of good luck getting your new job without a car in most of the US. now residential landlords are /also/ hurting.

- above makes consumerism much more difficult for a large fraction of the population; retail down. shops close; commercial real estate is still less attractive, and now residential is hurting because people (still) can't make rent.

- general market malaise means that previously in-trouble pensions (e.g. Illinois) are going to be even worse off. add up lost tax revenue + increased spending on services and you're looking at some serious trouble if those states don't get some attention from .gov.

so, really, absent some pretty intense government intervention, i just don't see this lasting much longer than 3 months. in fact, i don't even know if you'll see the layered effects start to really show up until you're a few months in.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#443

Post by amalcon »

beeforpork wrote: post #397
vonmoltke wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Normal wages" for many restaurant workers in the U.S. exclude tips. Without tips, "normal wages" is below the minimum wage. Restaurants are required to bump tipped employees up to the non-tipped minimum wage if the tips don't put them over it. Thus, "normal wages" in this case would be the non-tipped minimum wage.

What a bizarre interpretation of 'minimum wage' and 'tip'! This means that the restaurant owner essentially collects (part of) the tips? So you could employ a restaurant worker at $0/h and then bump them to minimum wage, because the tips will never cut it? Basically, you'd be collecting all the tips? This cannot seriously be legal!?

There's a separate "tipped employee" minimum wage, which must be paid by the employer regardless of tip income. Last I'd checked, though, it was only about $2/hr.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#444

Post by chii »

rtisdale wrote: post #422
detaro wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Econ 101 asks: If the drivers were better paid by the restaurant, why did they switch to delivery apps?

Insufficient knowledge of tax law leading to an incorrect assignment of value to each position. Insufficient knowledge of the wear and tear on ones car. Desire to "work for themselves" (despite the fact it really isn't). TL;DR actors in an economic system are often not fully informed.

> Insufficient knowledge

and whenever there's a knowledge gap, the "market" exploits it for arbitrage. But eventually (which may be a long time), this exploit would stop working as more people try to exploit it causing the profits from it to go down, or the lack of knowledge for which this exploits exist starts to disappear.

There's no rule to say that the market is super efficient at all times - just that it tends towards efficiency.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#445

Post by sharadov »

dylan604 wrote: post #400
brailsafe wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a few actually. Cooking isn't that difficult.

While cooking isn't that difficult, that biggest thing I think people will run into is just not being equipped. I have known several people that enjoyed eating out all of the time and never spent time equipping the kitchen. Sure, your basic pots and pans, but not measuring cups or spoons, mixing bowls, etc. Forks, spoons, butter knives on hand, but not a decent paring knife or chef's knife. I'm not talking stand mixe…

Absolutely, it takes quite a bit of effort to build out even a small kitchen.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#446

Post by chii »

GeorgeWBasic wrote: post #306
markdown wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better way would be to suspend all debt collection and rent collection for x months. That will keep lots of small businesses alive, and employees on reduced salaries will still be able to feed their families if they don't have to worry about rent. Throw in food stamps for the unemployed and you're most of the way to keeping a nation going.

Far, far, far better. In fact, it's the only thing that might actually work . All this talk of loans is just people refusing to admit that a capitalist system (I hate saying that word) simply doesn't function under these conditions. The economy needs to be paused.

The rental payment from a shop is income for the landlord. The income from the landlord is payment for his/her obligations - all the way up the chain.

If you force rental payments to stop, then who gets hit? The landlord is going to default on their obligations. So do you then bail them out? If the landlord defaults, the banks (presumably) will repossess the property. So it's just somebody else suffering, rather than the tenant.

The loans work, because the obligation to pay back this loan will come from a future where you have the capability. The govt is the eventual guarentor of this loan, and hence, they take the hit if the eventual future does not come to pass (e.g., the restaurant never regain their full business). The gov't can't take the full hit of all these defaults all at once, but they can if it is spread out. So a loan will spread them out into the future (even perhaps, far future), and the economy survives, even if a lot of the business that took the loan didn't.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#447

Post by joncrane »

evo_9 wrote: post #236

My wife an I opened a nail and wax salon 6 months ago. Really don't know what to do, so far they haven't asked us to shutdown. Business had been steadily growing and we are about break-even. No idea how this will play-out, what if anything the building owner can do to help out, or how the federal help might work for a small business like ours. The rent and payroll are our biggest expenses naturally, we can of course…

One thing that people are recommending is to offer prepaid packages that customers can use once things normalize. You provide a slight discount, the people with steady jobs transfer some liquidity to you, and you just have to give a bunch of free service in the coming months.

It's like a micro version of what the Fed is doing with banks.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#448

Post by ma2rten »

maximente wrote: post #442
ma2rten wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this can be over in less than 3 months.

what do you mean by "over"? i don't see the ability to do quarantine style lockdown for >3 months myself, if that's what you meant. there are a lot of 2nd (or >1th) order effects that i suspect will mean that people give up the ghost on flattening the curve. here are some i'm imagining myself; others probably know way more than me: - the local restaurants are probably well on their way to having shut down. the commer…

So?

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#449

Post by kingbirdy »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #300
cs702 wrote: post #3

Wow, 50-70% drop in online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-in diners, compared to last year, in every country measured by OpenTable. The restaurant sector generates $3 trillion in annual sales worldwide, and provides employment to a vast number of individuals.[a] Absent government intervention, the cascading economic impact from just this one sector will be enormous. [a] https://medium.com/@CravyHQ/the-res…

We’re feeling it baaaad here in New Orleans. Roughly 8% of our workforce is in the service sector and our film/television industry has ground to a halt. I work in video production. My friends/colleagues and I are basically just sitting around now hoping productions can get back up again in a safe but still somewhat timely manner. It’s going to be rough for a while.

A friend works at a large chain hotel in NOLA, the entire hotel staff was furloughed for 2 months a few days ago.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#450

Post by rosybox »

coronapanicthrw wrote: post #310
spookthesunset wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that one paper you showed me you’ll find another dozen research papers that say something entirely different. Until we know how many people have this or had it, suggesting multi-month lockdowns is ill informed, dangerous doomsday nonsense. PS: while bitching about downvotes is lame, it is quite disappointing to see HN devolve into yet another panic fueled echo chamber where only “rooting for” the worst case scena…

FYI You're not alone in observing the echo chamber effect. Those of us who agree with you that some skepticism of the cost/benefit of the intervention is merited have largely avoided posting on our main accounts because of the massive backlash against anything counter-panic-dogma, or our posts have been flagged/deaded with worrying rapidity. There were posts threatening _physical harm_ to individuals questioning the…

Yes it's all crazed conspiracy and you happen to be one of the few people to see through it all. Your medical pedigree must be amazing. Your scientific prowess beyond imagination. You're not helping.
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