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The state of the restaurant industry

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Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#481

Post by DoreenMichele »

lopmotr wrote: post #478
DoreenMichele wrote: post #457

I've been trying to encourage people to support local eateries by getting takeout. I have a compromised immune system. I don't do a lot of eating at restaurants. I do get a lot of takeout and have for a lot of years now. If you call ahead or order online and pick up, it minimizes your exposure to other people. Little Caesar's has a pizza portal where you can order online, pay online, enter a code at the store and ret…

Is personal charity to business owners really an effective way to help prevent a recession? What if you're supporting one of the weaker businesses that could barely survive anyway? Those are usefully killed off in a recession, improving overall efficiency. The more that close down, the better business will be for the survivors.

It's not charity. I'm dependent on takeout. I'm supporting businesses I've supported a long time.

I'm not going to eateries I wouldn't normally go to. I would be very negatively impacted if the eateries I frequent shut down.

I have a very deadly medical condition. I've had to somehow make my life work in the face of very hostile conditions, in a world that didn't want to accommodate my need for germ control.

I'm supposed to be on boatloads of drugs. I used to be on boatloads of drugs. I gradually got off all of them.

Prevention of exposure to germs to begin with played a role in that.

Like many people, I am worried about both germ control for everyone and economic survival. Unlike most other people, I've wrestled with such questions for me and my family for about two decades and developed some best practices.

Calling ahead or ordering online and getting takeout is one of those best practices.

It has worked for me for a long time under extremely difficult circumstances.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#482

Post by randycupertino »

lopmotr wrote: post #478
DoreenMichele wrote: post #457

I've been trying to encourage people to support local eateries by getting takeout. I have a compromised immune system. I don't do a lot of eating at restaurants. I do get a lot of takeout and have for a lot of years now. If you call ahead or order online and pick up, it minimizes your exposure to other people. Little Caesar's has a pizza portal where you can order online, pay online, enter a code at the store and ret…

Is personal charity to business owners really an effective way to help prevent a recession? What if you're supporting one of the weaker businesses that could barely survive anyway? Those are usefully killed off in a recession, improving overall efficiency. The more that close down, the better business will be for the survivors.

Calm down, Gene Fama. Nothing wrong with supporting local businesses that you enjoy and would have eaten at anyway were we not sheltering in place.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#484

Post by alonmower »

yibg wrote: post #467
DoreenMichele wrote: post #457

I've been trying to encourage people to support local eateries by getting takeout. I have a compromised immune system. I don't do a lot of eating at restaurants. I do get a lot of takeout and have for a lot of years now. If you call ahead or order online and pick up, it minimizes your exposure to other people. Little Caesar's has a pizza portal where you can order online, pay online, enter a code at the store and ret…

Anyone knowledge about the probabilities of getting infected from takeout / delivered food? Either via handling at the restaurant itself or en route. All indications are that the virus can survive quite a while on smooth surfaces like plastic bags.

One thing you could do if you’re really worried is toss the food in the oven for a little while (works best with Thai or Chinese food, think currys or rice/noodle dishes) and chuck all of the packaging

Wash your hands before you touch anything else and then when you grab the food out of the oven you should be in the clear

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#485

Post by sosodev »

jpizagno wrote: post #483

Related to the restaurant industry, Yelp is laying people off due to the corona virus. My contract with the Yelp has been withdrawn. This "corona panic" will kill more people than the virus itself.

Corona panic isn’t going to kill more people than the virus. Also, it certainly will kill far less people than if we didn’t react at all.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#486

Post by Lucadg »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #470
yibg wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone knowledge about the probabilities of getting infected from takeout / delivered food? Either via handling at the restaurant itself or en route. All indications are that the virus can survive quite a while on smooth surfaces like plastic bags.

I have a lot of procedures in place for dealing with it if someone at the store coughed, sneezed, etc. Things get eaten promptly. We typically order as close to exactly as much as we will eat. We rarely keep leftovers. Trash always goes out promptly after the meal is finished. I don't even own a trash can. Everyone washes hands promptly. If there was an incident and we feel things are contaminated, we don't keep empt…

What if the pizza cardboard is contaminated by the delivery guy? Do you place it on the table anyway? What if someone infected coughed on the pizza itself? Or simply touched the edges to place it there?

At the moment studies prove the virus stays in the air for a while but I couldn't find out whether it stays on surfaces or moving stuff makes it fly.

I stopped even buying bread a month ago in my country when there were zero official cases for fear of contamination.

Any info or procedure to make life easier is most welcome.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#487

Post by jpizagno »

sosodev wrote: post #485
jpizagno wrote: post #483

Related to the restaurant industry, Yelp is laying people off due to the corona virus. My contract with the Yelp has been withdrawn. This "corona panic" will kill more people than the virus itself.

Corona panic isn’t going to kill more people than the virus. Also, it certainly will kill far less people than if we didn’t react at all.

"Corona panic isn’t going to kill more people than the virus"

I wish I could bet you on that. I could get rich fast

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#488

Post by cyphar »

chii wrote: post #440
cyphar wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, restaurants are operating on economies of scale (and they get wholesale prices for their raw materials -- their groceries are much cheaper per-portion than yours). Don't get me wrong, cooking at home can be cheaper than eating out -- but only if you're cooking large batches of food or are buying ingredients that can be used for more than one meal. You'd be surprised how cheap individual portions of…

> Don't get me wrong, cooking at home can be cheaper than eating out cost of raw materials in restaurants are a very small portion of the overall bill the customer pays. A large portion is rent, and an even larger portion is labour/wages. I hear the margins are razor thin at around 5-10% (which is low considering the risks). Not to mention capital expenditure (of which the value, i guess, isn't gonna disappear overni…

Yes, that's all true but I don't quite see what you're disagreeing with.

I agree that it definitely is cheaper for restaurants to cook large numbers of the same meal, and they have many other expenditures which raise the price of your meal. But for a single meal, the question is whether you can cook it for less than the price at an equivalent restaurant. In many cases, this isn't the case unless you're cooking in large quantities and eating the same meal for several sittings. Yes, using seasonal ingredients is a good idea -- but a lot of restaurants also do that, and their groceries are still much cheaper than yours anyway.

For example (in Australia), if you want to make just one portion of Thai curry you need at least $60 worth of ingredients (your protein, chillies, lemongrass, galangal, palm sugar, shrimp paste, fish sauce, peanut oil, coriander, coconut milk, Thai basil, kaffir lime leaves, limes, lychees if that's your thing, and so on). So if you're only making one meal it's seriously not worth it (you can buy a decent Thai curry for a fraction of that price). But if you make 10-12 portions of curry (or you make a large batch of curry paste and use it for different dishes) then it starts to become cheaper per-portion.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#489

Post by DoreenMichele »

Lucadg wrote: post #486
DoreenMichele wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of procedures in place for dealing with it if someone at the store coughed, sneezed, etc. Things get eaten promptly. We typically order as close to exactly as much as we will eat. We rarely keep leftovers. Trash always goes out promptly after the meal is finished. I don't even own a trash can. Everyone washes hands promptly. If there was an incident and we feel things are contaminated, we don't keep empt…

What if the pizza cardboard is contaminated by the delivery guy? Do you place it on the table anyway? What if someone infected coughed on the pizza itself? Or simply touched the edges to place it there? At the moment studies prove the virus stays in the air for a while but I couldn't find out whether it stays on surfaces or moving stuff makes it fly. I stopped even buying bread a month ago in my country when there we…

I get takeout, not delivery. So either I'm handling it or one of my sons is handling it.

I don't like delivery and rarely get food delivered (sometimes in hotels). I've read stories about delivery drivers sampling the food or otherwise not protecting it from germs.

If you use Little Caesar's pizza portal, you pull it out of a warming oven yourself. Since it is in a warming oven, I'm guessing the heat will kill the germs.

If you don't have other procedures in place already to handle other issues, I think Little Caesar's pizza portal is the safest "don't need to know much about germ control" option.

If a place has staff that has bad habits, I stop going.

I use self checkout and similar whenever possible.

I usually pay with a card, not cash. Cash tends to be nasty stuff, especially paper money.

I like my food super fresh. I like Little Caesar's in part because they make the dough fresh in house daily. No other major American pizza chain dies that and I tolerate their pizza better than other major chains. I can eat it more consistently, in part because the dough is fresh.

Spices are medicinal. If you are concerned the food is a threat, order spicy foods or add spices. For pizza, red peppers are usually available in store.

If you have no idea what is safe, skip getting paper napkins and trash all extra condiments and the like immediately. Don't keep them around.

Take the trash out of the house immediately to whatever outside trash can you use. Promptly clean up thoroughly afterwards.

Edit:

I will add that staff at eateries are usually better trained in germ control than staff at most other establishments. Cashiers at other stores are a much bigger hazard in my experience and I do my best to use self checkout whenever possible because cashiers are so awful about doing things like licking their fingers to separate bags. You see that much less often in eateries in my experience.

I bet we could enhance containment by just passing and enforcing strict rules for germ control for all cashiers. They are the absolute bane of my existence.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#490

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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