The state of the restaurant industry • Hacker News Board

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#521

Post by shrimpx » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:09 AM UTC

sershe wrote: post #508

sosodev wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the current metrics, economic measures taken, and politicians' statements are any indications, the "corona panic" may as well waste far more life than the worst case unchecked virus epidemic could versus the slowed-down epidemic that will happen anyway.

I agree with your sentiment if “wasting life” is taken to mean long lasting negative impact and loss of momentum in people’s lives. This is happening already, to my friends.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#522

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:11 AM UTC

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…

Or it's just a correction; especially in the US, the eating out culture is ridiculous, and the staff are massively underpaid and taken advantage of (zero-hour contracts, low wages, dependence on tips which in practice means they're expected to do a lot of additional emotional labor, flirting, etc).

This money is not lost from the economy; people still have to eat after all.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#523

Post by batirch » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:18 AM UTC

throwaway7291 wrote: post #103

runevault wrote: post #101

I would love to see similar data for other industries as well. Any form of retail is going to get hit by this. Those that don't have online ordering setup are in for a world of hurt, and those that have it but don't advertise it well may not change the message fast enough. The long term impact for a lot of people is terrifying, but I don't see a way to avoid it without instead badly damaging our healthcare system and…

We have built a dashboard to do this sort of tracking https://www.econdb.com/covid/Italy/ which will be improved gradually. Obtaining good proxies for economic activity can be hard on some sectors.

Great insights. Thanks for your work!

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#524

Post by markdown » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:30 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #509

wyattpeak wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a reasonable reading of the event. Ascribing good intentions to Westminster with regard to the famine is unjustified. Some wanted to help, others distinctly didn't. It would be beyond charitable to suggest that all their actions were designed to minimise Irish suffering.

I don't think that's a reasonable reading of my comment. (Trying to be light-hearted here, not mocking.) I wasn't ascribing good intentions to Westminster. I was saying that their intentions, good or bad, and the intentions of the current American government are irrelevant. What's relevant here is they did a thing and it got x result. So we should use that example to wonder what will really happen should we do a simi…

> So we should use that example to wonder what will really happen should we do a similar thing now.

Except nobody is suggesting a similar thing. I started this thread by suggesting that the government do x, and you replied with the assumption that the government would do x+y.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#525

Post by JamesBarney » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:31 AM UTC

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.

So my understanding is the best items are ones that have limited human interaction after cooking. Curries, soups, wings are better than sandwich tacos salads

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#526

Post by gerland » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

IMHO the state of the restaurant industry is - why does it still exist? I would have expected it to move to a service oriented model a long time ago. Taking into account how underpaid are the workers comapred to how overpriced they usually are it's nothing short of a miracle. I guess there are SOME restaurants that are necessay, but there is a few of them on almost every street near the place I live in.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#527

Post by eloisant » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

yibg wrote: post #519

ericd wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, you would think people making sushi have really good hand hygiene. Otherwise you shouldn't get sushi from that place, epidemic or not.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#528

Post by temporaryCocoon » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

Are the data available in more detail? I would like to see the finer substructures of the data such as food types and changes in preference. My business focuses on providing and building such models. If anyone here is from OpenTable and is interested, feel free to reply to this comment.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#529

Post by GarrisonPrime » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

jlangenauer wrote: post #518

lopmotr wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being devil's advocate a bit here, but efficiency helps prevent boom and bust cycles, or at least reduces their magnitude.

Supporting "worthy virtues" is all well and good, except that it's subjective and not always well thought out, leading to unfortunate consequences.

I'm sure plenty of people thought it great to help Sally Struthers feed the 3 million starving African children in the 80's...until the result was 10 million starving African children.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#530

Post by GarrisonPrime » Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

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…

If your area has been declared to be in a state of emergency, you might qualify for a small business loan set up just for the purpose of helping businesses such as yours survive this:

https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/