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The state of the restaurant industry

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Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#491

Post by doctoboggan »

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.

“The risk of getting infected from food delivery is pretty low but not zero,” says Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-are-the-risks-of-food-and-...

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#492

Post by jpizagno »

rosybox wrote: post #177

I feel for the industry, but I'm having a hard time seeing myself buying gift cards at a moment when I'm wondering if I will have a job or food for my family.

I was just laid off due to the virus. So yes, be careful.

That is the problem with "corona panic", it causes other people to panic and behave irrationally

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#493

Post by pbourke »

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 My contract with the Yelp has been withdrawn.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.

Now that events are cancelled and local businesses cease spending on ads, local media outlets will also start hurting. First local newspapers, then radio, eventually TV.

The alt-weeklies in Seattle and Portland have already furloughed a lot of staff and ceased print publication.

The economy is a vast web that just had a bowling ball dropped on it.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#494

Post by jmb12686 »

Stratoscope wrote: post #464
mcv wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard of at least one fancy restaurant that announced they're going to offer take-out and delivery soon. It's going to be the only way to survive.

Here in the Bay Area, that's all any restaurant is allowed to do.

Here in the entire state of Ohio, literally every dine in restaurant and/or bar operation has been shut down. Only take out / delivery is allowed: https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/media/news...

I believe other states / municipalities have started to follow suit, but entire state shutdown has been surreal.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#495

Post by pbourke »

whatshisface wrote: post #212
jborichevskiy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an economist (just trying to understand all this) but wouldn’t this just be kicking the can down the road? I understand how loans and credit works in healthy markets/seasons but to me this feels like making a bet that these businesses would be able to take this infusion, weather out the storm, and then raise profits enough above what they were before to pay it all back. It’s fundamentally different from me starti…

If you can kick the can down the road until the virus goes away, you just saved the whole economy. The ability of my local Chinese place to serve customers is undiminished, my desire to eat Chinese food is undiminished, and all that's in the way is an ultimately temporary law.

> he ability of my local Chinese place to serve customers is undiminished, my desire to eat Chinese food is undiminished, and all that's in the way is an ultimately temporary law.

I have thought quite a bit about whether this situation will cause long-term behavioral changes.

Do you expect the restaurant business to bounce back to where it was after the crisis ends? I would expect that to happen for a short-duration event. But what if this persists for months, or into next year?

I have searched for papers that explore this idea (say after the 1918 Spanish Flu), but haven't found anything relevant.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#496

Post by pbourke »

brenden2 wrote: post #4

Presumably it should be -100% in cities like NYC where restaurants have been ordered to shut down for in-restaurant dining.

The OpenTable data includes takeout and delivery. I think NYC actually might do a bit better than other markets, since there is a strong takeout and delivery culture with most restaurants below the fine dining level.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#497

Post by pbourke »

nstj wrote: post #419

It would be interesting to see how this lines up with incidence in coronavirus/covid spread. Some places look to be slower on the uptake in dropping restaurant reservations, which may portend a more severe onset of cv in that community.

There are some notable outliers, such as major Florida cities showing less of a drop (maybe due to Spring Break?) despite Florida having active cases and I believe a couple of deaths for over a week now.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#498

Post by smallgovt »

slg wrote: post #240
mech1234 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not delaying the inevitable. There will be many profitable restaurant businesses who find their business lacking liquid cash over the next few months. Being thrown a credit lifeline means that they can make it through this period of time and come out on the other side as a profitable business again. Paying down the debt is a common business practice that people do all the time. Throwing out a credit lifeline ca…

>There will be many profitable restaurant businesses who find their business lacking liquid cash over the next few months Like I said in my earlier comment, the best hope for these businesses is to return to normal revenue numbers. They aren't going to make up for the business they are currently losing. They don't have a liquidity problem. They have a lost revenue problem. They are still accruing costs without accrui…

I think you're overestimating the magnitude of lost revenue. We're talking about 1 month of lost revenue.

A profitable restaurant's unit model might be: 10% net profit, 30% COGS, 30% fixed cost, 30% labor cost

During this one month shutdown, the restaurants won't incur labor cost or COGS. So, they're really only in the hole 30% of one month's revenue. With a little back of the envelope math, you'll see that the restaurant owner can pay back a loan for this amount by allocating 10% of their monthly profits (or 1% of monthly revenue) to loan payback.

Now, if the restaurant is NOT profitable, then we have a problem. But, they were probably going to go out of business soon anyways in that case.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#499

Post by tropo »

anthonypasq wrote: post #327
lotsofpulp wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the resulting product is far superior than what is available at 95% of restaurants.

I mean, not really, unless you are comparing to McDonald's.

McDonald's was hard to beat back when they had fried pies. They dropped that menu item though, so now we can beat them.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#500

Post by nitwit005 »

nikanj wrote: post #471
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.

The only thing I know, is the people making the food probably don’t get paid sick leave. With the huge demand in place for delivery food, the pressure is on from their bosses to keep coming in no matter how sick.

I suspect most people have friends who have mentioned the same, so the overall trust level is likely fairly low.

> Twelve percent of workers said they worked when they were sick with vomiting or diarrhea on two or more shifts during the last year.

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/ehsnet/plain_language/food-work...

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