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The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

bfi.uchicago.edu

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Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#31

Post by renewiltord »

simonw wrote: post #18
erulabs wrote: post #6

My favorite ~75 year old BBQ place here in Pasadena has half the bar (where you'd sit and eat and socialize if you were eating alone) reserved to give space for all the take-out orders and uber-eats pickups flowing through. I see single people come in and, without a space at the bar, take a seat at a booth alone. I don't blame restaurants for this at all, it's a tough business, but I do think it's about time we apply…

"I do think it's about time we apply just an ounce of shame to people who uber-eats every meal they eat from restaurants clearly designed for eating-in" Help me out here. What negative effect does that behavior have on the world such that people should feel shame for doing it? (I'm still Covid cautious enough that I avoid dining indoors in places where I share air with strangers. This is a huge lifestyle limitation,…

It’s the age old story of change aversion. I imagine one can post-hoc rationalize an argument for the decrease in third spaces and ensuing loneliness or some nonsense that will quote statistics of the quality of “50% of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck”.

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#32

Post by [deleted] »

krunck wrote: post #28

Eating in American restaurants where there is constant pressure to shovel in the food and leave, is a waste. You feel like you're on an assembly line. What's the point then? On top of that they have the gall to ask for 25% tips. For what? Pressuring me to leave? I enjoy visiting Eastern Europe(and Europe in general) where a party can sit at a table at 7pm, dine, drink, talk, and relax and remain there until close at…

[deleted]

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#33

Post by BurningFrog »

mihaic wrote: post #3

This is a strong argument that habits formed during covid stuck around until today, as it was long enough to reshape the baseline. Unfortunately these habits seem to affect the sociability of everyone, and I think we still underestimate what a terrible burden staying locked in was on the population.

So what kind of macro event might nudge us back to sociability?

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#34

Post by JumpCrisscross »

krunck wrote: post #28

Eating in American restaurants where there is constant pressure to shovel in the food and leave, is a waste. You feel like you're on an assembly line. What's the point then? On top of that they have the gall to ask for 25% tips. For what? Pressuring me to leave? I enjoy visiting Eastern Europe(and Europe in general) where a party can sit at a table at 7pm, dine, drink, talk, and relax and remain there until close at…

> enjoy visiting Eastern Europe(and Europe in general) where a party can sit at a table at 7pm, dine, drink, talk, and relax and remain there until close at 1am if they want

Would note that this is common at high-end restaurants in America. (Unless they sear at 10 or 11PM, in which case they may want another turn of tables.)

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#35

Post by tmpz22 »

deathanatos wrote: post #19

> The restaurants’ productivity growth rates are strongly correlated, however, with reductions in the amount of time their customers spend in the establishments, particularly with a rising share of customers spending 10 minutes or less. The frequency of such ‘take-out’ customers rose considerably during COVID, even at fast food restaurants, and never went back down. The magnitude of the restaurant-level relationship…

Just look at the furniture in American restaurants - cheap, plastic, and uncomfortable, even in high priced restaurants.

I empathize with the economic predicament of restauranteurs but I'll continue to frequent establishments with better comfort features especially because the prices are high no matter where you go. Why pay $25 rushed sloppy meal when you could pay $30 for a better meal, in a better setting, and resulting in a better (earned!) tip.

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#36

Post by alwa »

How much of this is the COVID-correlated normalization of delivery apps [0]? Anecdotally I do sometimes notice people eating quickly or taking out, but what I really notice is the nonstop flurry of app delivery folks darting in and out of the pickup area... Seems consistent with the study's observations, too:

> As a result, we think the growth in take-out or delivery is the primary driver of the jump in short visits. With take-out, the customer orders on their phone and then comes into the restaurant to pick it up without eating there. With delivery, the customer orders food to be delivered to their home either from a food app like Grubhub or directly from the restaurant itself as with a Domino’s Pizza. It is important to recognize that either of these things connotes a substitution of home production for restaurant labor. The customer cleans up after themselves and washes their own dishes, for example. And delivery services substitute for the customer traveling themselves. But they are still, from the restaurant’s perspective, just a new stream of demand. If the restaurant can satisfy such quick-turn customers in addition to their regular customers with the same labor force, that would show up in the data as a clear, legitimate increase in their productivity.

[0] cf. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/doordash-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/grubhub-statistics/

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#37

Post by the-rc »

relaxing wrote: post #29
the-rc wrote: post #17

I would have guessed that the surge had something to do with faster payments, namely contactless and the wireless terminals. In a way, it's even broader than that: if you order for pick up and prepay, payment is pretty much out of the picture entirely, replaced by just verifying that you are getting the right order. Then you're avoiding the productivity losses in serving the dishes, washing the plates, etc.

The correct answer is right there in the abstract. It’s not even 200 words. You don’t even have to read tfa.

True... I didn't make clear that I had tried to take a wild guess after reading only the first sentence in the abstract.

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#38

Post by relaxing »

smelendez wrote: post #7
nortlov wrote: post #4

My take away is that the overall labor per customer decreases because workers are spending less time on non-cooking/serving tasks. The paper implies the efficiency gain is in how labor is used rather than production or serving efficiency. This seems like an anticlimactic conclusion.

It feels worth measuring formally so that the scientific community can basically treat this as a known, citable fact and have some numbers to work with. I do wonder if the somewhat elliptical, high academic writing (“take-out” in quotes as if it’s an exotic term) and talk of a mystery being solved is to deflect criticism that this feels obvious or like a WSJ story.

It never ceases to amaze me when tech people take issue with jargon in other fields.

The authors use academic tone because they’re academics writing for academics.

The conclusion might feel obvious to you (very conveniently, when you’ve already been handed the answer) but what’s notable is proving it with data and rigorous analysis.

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#39

Post by mediaman »

wormlord wrote: post #8

Friedmanite economists lauding the "productivity increases" of restaurants, meanwhile I have stopped eating anywhere except food trucks because mid-tier dining is so bad now due to cost-cutting and loss of expertise. Yeah that tracks for Chicago School economics.

The paper does not cover "mid-tier dining." It covers fast food because that's where they had good data.

Moreover, real restaurant spending in total is up, so while your personal dining decisions are interesting they don't appear to reflect the aggregate data.

I'm also not sure why you are calling Goolsbee a "Friedmanite." He served in the Obama administration and advocated strong government intervention during the financial crisis. Do you think every UChicago economist is a Friedman disciple?

Lastly, where did you infer the economists are "lauding" the productivity increases? It appears nowhere in the paper. They only defined productivity increases and explained why they occurred. Was there some other reason you wanted them to be lauding it, other than to justify your anger with people whose policy beliefs you don't seem to be familiar with?

Re: The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

#40

Post by wormlord »

knowknow wrote: post #23
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually wait, that’s the whole issue. The things being superseded for productivity here aren’t measurable.

Then how would you expect an economist to study it, go to restaurants and report their opinions? The comment i was replying to is essentially being snarky that economist are doing what they’re supposed to. Seeing and explaining economic trends.

> Then how would you expect an economist to study it, go to restaurants and report their opinions?

Unironically yes. There are dimensions other than raw profitability that determine the health of a sector. The work that chicago school economists do flattens everything onto just a financial axis, which is harmful in my opinion. What do I care about the "productivity" of the restaurant sector when all the food tastes like shit?

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