The state of the restaurant industry • Hacker News Board

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#221

Post by true_religion » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

neltnerb wrote: post #137

I'm always a little surprised that so many people never picked up the ability to even do basic cooking. Of course, as recently as Sunday people like Nunes were telling people it was important to support their local businesses by eating out as if it were their patriotic duty. It might be different now that even Fox and Trump are saying the same thing as the CDC finally. Maybe not if people literally cannot feed themse…

I can do basic cooking, but when I checked the grocers there isn’t any food to buy. So if I hadn’t already had a stock to last at least a week or two more, it would be eating restaurant food (delivery) or starve.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#222

Post by himinlomax » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

pinkfoot wrote: post #133

himinlomax wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, industrial farming HASN'T. (There is plenty to say about industrial farming; the use of antibiotics in it is probably largely responsible for MRSA and the likes. But it has not resulted in a wartime-like conditions in the whole world.)

> The point is, industrial farming HASN'T. Except for the wee Mad Cow Disease thingie that jumped to people.

How many victims?

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#223

Post by pc86 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #186

neltnerb wrote: post #137

I'm always a little surprised that so many people never picked up the ability to even do basic cooking. Of course, as recently as Sunday people like Nunes were telling people it was important to support their local businesses by eating out as if it were their patriotic duty. It might be different now that even Fox and Trump are saying the same thing as the CDC finally. Maybe not if people literally cannot feed themse…

Many grocery stores have major shortages, short-term grocery deliveries are fully booked, and where I am, normally 1-2 day Amazon food/medicine mail-order deliveries are presently at 5+ days. I stocked up a month ago when everything was still running to ensure my household has food 12 weeks (I always have 30 days, but wanted to be on the safe side), but I know many people did not, and it’s going to be a while before…

Especially when you have people who already have 4 weeks of food going out and buying another 2 months worth.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#224

Post by abvdasker » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

ghouse wrote: post #216

abvdasker wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 livelih…

That's why we (US, and much of the world) have progressive tax rates for earned income. Though in the US, we then give lower tax rates for unearned income...

You alluded to this, but in reality effective tax rates in the US are actually flat or even regressive due to the favorable tax treatment of investment income as well as the massive deductions for property ownership:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w20625

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#225

Post by stronglikedan » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

On the bright side, I've never received better dine-in service than I have in the past few days.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#226

Post by zzzeek » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #110

>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 will boom. all the restaurants in the NY tri state area are closed but all are allowed to do take out and delivery so that's going to be a big thing.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#227

Post by sambroner » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #188

hodgesrm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably only possible in places like New Orleans. I was surprised to learn about the notion of the "to-go cup" a few years back. It has significant explanatory power in some parts of the city.

It's not legal in most places, but being temporarily legalized in some. Washington, DC is passing a bill this afternoon [1] allowing takeout places to deliver beer/wine if ordered with at least one food item. I'm guessing other cities will pass something similar. [1] edit: See section 203 photographed here: https://twitter.com/mitchryals/status/1239938801839099905

I couldn't find this by googling. Can you post a link?

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#228

Post by bryanrasmussen » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #205

dylan604 wrote: post #110

>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…

if you're home all day long one of the main spurs for going out to eat is gone, at the end of the day you're no longer too tired to make food, you're not getting home too late to make it at a good time, you don't need to save time. Thus the only spur left to wanting to order food is eating something tasty you can't make at home easily - I admit that is good but given that the delivery is also a potential virus delivery I expect that it won't be the replacement.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#229

Post by jborichevskiy » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #212

jborichevskiy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 starti…

If you can kick the can down the road until the virus goes away, you just saved the whole economy. The ability of my local Chinese place to serve customers is undiminished, my desire to eat Chinese food is undiminished, and all that's in the way is an ultimately temporary law.

> The ability of my local Chinese place to serve customers is undiminished, my desire to eat Chinese food is undiminished, and all that's in the way is an ultimately temporary law.

Agreed on this. But the rent paid out during the period of reduced revenue coming in creates a delta that this loan is filling in. The loan still needs to be paid back (even assuming 0% interest). That extra money needs to come from somewhere: increased prices, increased traffic, or decreased expenditures.

Re: The state of the restaurant industry

#230

Post by ck2 » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

It's not about industry, it's about the people.

We handle this like any other shuttered or suffering business though no fault of their own, with safety nets for the people.

Problem is those safety nets have been destroyed in this country and people voted for that to happen on purpose because darn if they are going to let one single migrant get assistance. This is the result. People feeling they must go into work sick because "no other choice".