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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

#91

Post by Animats »

"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."

Well, duh.

I feel I'm in the way eating in a restaurant when 90% of their business is filling DoorDash/Uber orders.

Restaurants are closing earlier. 8 PM closing isn't unusual now. By then, the delivery business has dried up, and they want the onsite customers to clear out.

I previously mentioned a place in Silicon Valley near Apple HQ where not only did they want onsite customers to order via a QR-code menu, they tried to get customers to go through onboarding and set up an account. Eating onsite was simply a delivery with a very short distance, bag and all.

Of course "productivity" is up.

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

#92

Post by brewdad »

tayo42 wrote: post #80
xg15 wrote: post #67

I wonder if there are also cultural/regulatory differences here. I'm in the EU, and of course we had the forced shift to takeout as well, during covid. But while homeoffice as a concept stayed, restaurants very quickly went back to in-house dining when it was over. Seeing a takeout-only restaurant with a repurposed dine-in area here in 2025 would be beyond weird and would probably just give everyone covid flashbacks.…

Eating out seems less popular in the the US right now. Everything is more expensive and there's the 18-25% tip that gets applied. Going out to even a basic lunch with my wife is close to 50 usually for the meal. Takeout I can tip the delivery person a little less. And keep left overs a little easier. Take out is only for being lazy, I'd still just cook and meet or beat in quality any restaurant except ones that mignt…

Pre COVID, takeout meant not tipping at all. We should probably shift back towards that world.

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

#93

Post by t-writescode »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #87
t-writescode wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think restaurants themselves are unproductive. You think one of the staples of all commerce for basically all of time are unproductive? I would imagine basically any form of sustainability for them has been tried. Sure patterns change; but, I mean literal millennia of food service is something to not ignore.

Yeah, true. I meant sitdown restaurants.

Those have been around for centuries ... like ... the "Tavern" trope is among the oldest of tropes

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

#94

Post by ekianjo »

6stringmerc wrote: post #70
j_timberlake wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timing is perfect for drone delivery to make a big impact here. Meals could arrive fast enough to stay hot, so the quality of the food goes up while reducing delivery times too. I don't get why companies can't figure out how to make this profitable.

Because drones are noisy and irritating in reality and nobody wants them flying around their neighborhood and they don’t scale and they can potentially scare animals and and and…

I can relate with most of what you said, but "drones don't scale", really? If they can scale in war, I can't see why they would not scale for other uses

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

#95

Post by brewdad »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #24
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…

Thanks, but like the movie theater vs streaming video at home, my living room is far more comfortable and I don't have to wear pants.

Your delivery driver really wishes you’d keep a pair nearby for their brief interaction.

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

#96

Post by ekianjo »

randerson wrote: post #74
6stringmerc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because drones are noisy and irritating in reality and nobody wants them flying around their neighborhood and they don’t scale and they can potentially scare animals and and and…

And they can't press buttons in the elevator. I don't think any delivery service will take off in a city if people have to leave their apartments.

Maybe we will end up with a mix of drones for places where we can reach by air, and robot operators to deliver other packages when human interfaces are what you have to deal with.

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

#97

Post by tayo42 »

brewdad wrote: post #92
tayo42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating out seems less popular in the the US right now. Everything is more expensive and there's the 18-25% tip that gets applied. Going out to even a basic lunch with my wife is close to 50 usually for the meal. Takeout I can tip the delivery person a little less. And keep left overs a little easier. Take out is only for being lazy, I'd still just cook and meet or beat in quality any restaurant except ones that mignt…

Pre COVID, takeout meant not tipping at all. We should probably shift back towards that world.

I should have been clearer, meant delivery, only tip the driver, but its not 20%

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

#98

Post by ekianjo »

khazhoux wrote: post #79
pcthrowaway wrote: post #62

People switched away from cash during COVID. Lots of people who might have been unbanked or lightly banked went all-in as everything went digital. Now restaurants (historically a pretty cash-heavy industry) have fewer cash transactions. Possibly related?

I think the move away from cash coincided with COVID but was not related much. The convenience of digital simply made cash useless (mostly).

> The convenience of digital simply made cash useless (mostly).

Useless? Wait until your digital transactions fail or your bank or your state decides to block your access to your payment system. And believe me, it's not a "if", this is a real threat that will be waged against people. When it's technically possible, it always ends up becoming a reality. And by that time, "going back to cash" may not be an option in certain places, because of 'convenience'.

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

#99

Post by guy234 »

knowknow wrote: post #21
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.

I don’t see how explaining productivity increases that didn’t have a previous known origin is “lauding”. What measurable phenomena do you think economists should focus their research on instead?

Every sience has the dual purpose of performing measurements and identifying what measurements can possibly be taken.

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

#100

Post by ekianjo »

wormlord wrote: post #48
mediaman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> I'm also not sure why you are calling Goolsbee a "Friedmanite." The paper is from the Becker-Friedman Institute of Economics. It is literally the Chicago school. Do the authors need to call themselves disciples of Milton Friedman? > 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 th…

> Becker-Friedman Institute of Economics. It is literally the Chicago school.

It may be, but don't expect organizations to remain true to their names over time. There are very few Friedman-minded economists out there nowadays.

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