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The state of the restaurant industry

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Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#511

Post by brailsafe »

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…

Ya but you barely need those things for most cooking below a certain level, and in a time where you have no choice, it's okay to be a little frustrated. You can then go buy stuff as necessary.. probably.

I have a tiny kitchen with a single very basic pot and some super shitty baking sheets that I got from a thrift store, IKEA chef/paring knives, a mediocre damaged Henckels from Craigslist, and some mediocre non-stick skillets. All in probably $50. Ya, I might like a ~$120 French or Japanese chef knife, and maybe a nicer pot, but it's absolutely fine. My actual chef friend came by recently and made a killer meal with little trouble.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#512

Post by brailsafe »

sharadov wrote: post #445
dylan604 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's only in retrospect that it seems that way. Over time, you buy stuff as your needs change and you get a bunch of kitchen stuff. It takes very little energy and money to get some basic cheap gear together

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#513

Post by pentae »

I ate at a high end Korean steak house the other night in Bali and ALL guests were temperature checked and made to use hand sanitizer on the way into the restaurant. The servers all wore disposable gloves as well. It obviously doesn't stop people who are asymptomatic but it seemed like a great step in the right direction. I imagine if more restaurant venues did this they would get more business during these times.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#514

Post by Lucadg »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #489
Lucadg wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ge…

Thanks for the clarification! One option I learned in Paris years ago is to buy the dough from the bakery and then prepare the pizza myself: it takes a few minutes and it's usually much better.

Also, I've been baking my own bread and pizza. When in a lock down, it's a great pastime.

Take care!

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#515

Post by SomewhatLikely »

repsilat wrote: post #503
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…

> The restaurant sector generates $3 trillion in annual sales worldwide, and provides employment to a vast number of individuals Can someone with an economics background tell me whether this is a sound argument? It looks like it could be reasonable to me, but it also looks a lot like the examples of deadweight losses in Bastiat's "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen". I would guess that we should count the…

There's certainly some broken window logic being applied, but not 100%. There's no doubt that some economic decisions (investments, employment choices,etc.) made before the virus would not have been made given what we know now. If we had an impossibly flexible economy where everyone could be immediately rehired as deliverers and expert physicians and restaurants and assets could be reatomized into hospitals and toilet paper then maybe the impact could be very small. It's possible that in such a world the investment decisions made not knowing the virus was coming wouldn't differ much from the decisions that would have been made with perfect prescience. But in reality there will be some cost caused by the difference in economic choices made not knowing this was coming. The sum over everyone's future income streams will be smaller than they would have been because of worse resource allocation. I agree it won't be the full $3T but don't have the expertise to estimate it.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#516

Post by mikekchar »

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.

The opposite is likely true. For example, the big companies making bentos for the Japanese railway are having their workers come in only 2 days a week. There is no demand and therefore no work. If you are even remotely ill, there is no way you are going to get to work -- there is a healthy person who is desperate to get those hours.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#517

Post by DoreenMichele »

mikekchar wrote: post #516
nikanj wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The opposite is likely true. For example, the big companies making bentos for the Japanese railway are having their workers come in only 2 days a week. There is no demand and therefore no work. If you are even remotely ill, there is no way you are going to get to work -- there is a healthy person who is desperate to get those hours.

I think this is true in this case.

I began trying to encourage people to get takeout because I heard staff talking about cutting staff hours because their sales are so bad. The local Denny's, normally open 24 hours, is only open 8am to 8pm. I saw one guy there working the register. There's normally multiple staff during the day.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#518

Post by jlangenauer »

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.

Why is "overall efficiency" in any way important? As compared to people having stable livelihoods, diverse and wonderful local businesses instead of "efficient" and monotonous chains.

The obsession with efficiency at the cost of other, far more worthy virtues is what has brought us to this point, where "efficient" global supply chains cannot now produce urgently needed goods at a time of crisis.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#519

Post by yibg »

ericd wrote: post #507
nikanj wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can nuke the food in the microwave, supposedly that's been a common measure in China for delivery. You have to get it up to germ-killing temp throughout for it to be effective, though. Not great for sushi/salad takeout, obviously...

Would probably also be good to stay away from high touch food like Sushi. Someone's hands have literally been all over the food.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#520

Post by [deleted] »

foota wrote: post #506
repsilat wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The restaurant sector generates $3 trillion in annual sales worldwide, and provides employment to a vast number of individuals Can someone with an economics background tell me whether this is a sound argument? It looks like it could be reasonable to me, but it also looks a lot like the examples of deadweight losses in Bastiat's "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen". I would guess that we should count the…

I think the most important thing is that they're both a net wealth transfer to local food service workers (who by and large are relatively low income) and fuel demand down the road. Most people will be able to cook for themselves just fine, but by doing so they'll be saving money, which would otherwise have been spent locally. This means that that money won't go on to restaurant workers to be spent, and the remainder…

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