Getting ready to nose dive totally. Here in NC we just joined the list of states that have banned dine-in service entirely. Curbside or delivery only, after 5PM today.
Same here in Austin!
The state of the restaurant industry
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Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#202The government has talked about bailouts for various industries from airlines, to cruise ships, to shale companies. But almost every sector of the US economy is going to be hit by this and I have no idea how we are going to react. Will there be a restaurant bailout? What would that even look like? It is much easier to work on bailing out a handful of airlines but how do you handle it for literally thousands of small…
The WSJ Editorial Board has suggested that the Fed create a new facility that gives very cheap loans to businesses that need them. These loans will not need to be repaid right away and should sustain any business that needs it during this period. It sounded workable. https://www.wsj.com/articles/financing-an-economic-shutdown-...
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 starting a small business and going to Chase saying, look here’s a healthy prospect and I’ll be able to pay it back within x years.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#203The government has talked about bailouts for various industries from airlines, to cruise ships, to shale companies. But almost every sector of the US economy is going to be hit by this and I have no idea how we are going to react. Will there be a restaurant bailout? What would that even look like? It is much easier to work on bailing out a handful of airlines but how do you handle it for literally thousands of small…
UBI is honestly the only solution here.
I think targeted redistribution will work better. If you want to protect the economy, take the people with excess wealth — providing no utility right now — and give some of their wealth to those who cannot earn income during this crisis. It avoids the inflationary effects of printing money. You could accomplish this by raising taxes on the wealthy and sending the revenues directly to those who will lose their livelihoods and the small businesses which need to make rent to stay afloat. Obviously the political appetite to do this doesn't exist in the US, but I think it is easily the best solution.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#204Getting ready to nose dive totally. Here in NC we just joined the list of states that have banned dine-in service entirely. Curbside or delivery only, after 5PM today.
Same here in NYC since this morning.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#205>the cascading economic impact from just this one sector will be enormous. The entire hospitality industry is going to take a huge hit. I do work in the convention, corporate travel/event space, and my calendar up until June has been wiped out. Cascading is the key thing people seem to gloss over. Sure, servers and kitchen staff are obvious. The food delivery people will not be needed. Companies like Aramark that pro…
Food delivery to homes will probably boom. That's going to be the replacement for visiting a restaurant in the coming weeks or months.
But every luxury industry that involves going outside and meeting people will be wiped out. The tourist industry is going to be completely dead for a while. Hopefully it can be revived afterward. Hopefully the people involved can find other jobs in the mean time. But it's going to be a harsh year for a lot of people.
It's unbelievable how lucky I am that I can do my work from home.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#206Good data here. I would love to see Square publish something.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone give money to OpenTable to support restaurant in difficult time? I wanted to help a couple of local business but there’s nothing on-line: Google Maps says that they are open (and my city in in lock-down).
If your favorite places offer gift certificates, that's a good way to support them. You're basically giving them an interest-free loan for the amount that you purchase. I've already done this with a bunch of my favorite local restaurants.
Sadly OT no longer has their old gift card program, which was my baby when I worked there :<
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#208Is this really that surprising given that states and countries are now explicitly prohibiting dine-in options and mandating restaurants to be takeout only? I'd love to see this data overlaid against the changes in takeout orders.
Absolutely. My town shut down restaurant eat in this week, but when I went my favorite Thai place for pickup the owner said they had one of their busiest Saturdays ever. Despite fear, rational or not, people still need to eat.
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.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#209Perhaps US eat-out culture will die, and those who worked those jobs will just have to find some other means by which to negotiate value from the economy.
But there’s just so many of them. Between the hotel and restaurant industry we’re talking about more than 20 million people.
Having seen it first hand, the vast majority of those 20 million people are living check to check. even missing a few shifts puts them on the brink of homelessness. this is going to be very, very bad.
Re: The state of the restaurant industry
#210I realise this is an entirely irrelevant point, but any ideas why Germany was doing so well up until this crisis?
My guess is that the have very few restaurants in Germany, so it's just noise.
Opened opentable.de, they say they have 1744 restaurants in Berlin alone, 624 in Hamburg, and 1122 in Munich, plus many other cities/regions. I wonder why only Munich and Hamburg are in the Cities table, and why there's e.g a jump of 19% in Munich for Sunday March 1.
This year it was warm (for winter) and dry on that Sunday, and last year it was presumably wet and dreary.