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The curious surge of productivity in U.S. restaurants

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

#251

Post by walthamstow »

borgdefenser wrote: post #230
bsder wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that they say productivity is up when all of my local restaurants seem to be slower than ever ... but I digress. > Especially if you're anything above a 7/10 home cook I'd move your assessment down to a 5/10 home cook. Most restaurants are using ingredients of sufficiently low quality that it is now pathetically easy to beat them on that axis. Using even slightly better ingredients than average puts you ah…

Cooking is also a skill that is easy to improve on and not an inborn genetic property that someone has or doesn't have. The way people that don't cook talk about cooking you would think it is on the level of work involved in roofing or pouring cement blocks. I am literally cooking a Thai dish right now. I could have went to the Thai restaurant but tinkering with this dish is actually more fun.

After spending all day 'building' intangible things in a virtual world I really love actually making something real with my hands and then eating it with my wife

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

#252

Post by mjevans »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #188
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…

Several fast food restaurants in my town tried to keep their dining rooms closed well beyond the health emergency. They were reminded by the town that their business licenses depended on them having dine in service. If they wanted to be drive thru and pick up only, they'd need to convert to a different business license, including a new traffic study and payment of road impact fees. They reopened the dining rooms inst…

Reminds me; I have a SERIOUS gripe about restaurants closing before their posted hours end.

I respect the need to have a 'last order' time, and __if they don't list it__ , it isn't unreasonable to assume that's the final time on the door. What if I want to walk in for takeout because I HATE using the drive through? (I do hate that, far less consistent food, no chance to verify it's made right.)

I do respect restaurants that list a separate 'final order' time and 'everyone should be out' time, that's good communication.

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

#253

Post by infecto »

dylan604 wrote: post #240
shigawire wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most would say no I'd guess in the US. To me "sit down" implies you are seated by a host and waited on.

So a sit-down restaurant was a sit-down restaurant pre-COVID, then became not a sit-down restaurant during COVID just because the style of waiting/serving became different. That's a tilted definition

You seem to be trying to pick at words needlessly. Why does Covid matter now?

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

#254

Post by ein0p »

fumufumu wrote: post #73
colonial wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd like to know are the demographics of the people using the delivery apps. Everyone I know refuses to touch them due to the massive extra costs piled on top, but whenever I swing by somewhere in-person to get takeout, I have the same experience as you - there's always at least a few bags on the "Doordash shelf" or equivalent. Who's burning all this money?!

I moved back to the USA, SF in June 2021. I stayed with a friend and parnter for 5 days. In those 5 days they ordered via doordash for ~8 meals (lunch and dinner).

'21 is hardly representative, depending on where you were. If it was one of the bigger cities in blue states, they were paranoid about COVID until the early '22.

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

#255

Post by dylan604 »

infecto wrote: post #253
dylan604 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a sit-down restaurant was a sit-down restaurant pre-COVID, then became not a sit-down restaurant during COVID just because the style of waiting/serving became different. That's a tilted definition

You seem to be trying to pick at words needlessly. Why does Covid matter now?

Because the same restaurant was considered a sit down joint and then it wasn’t because a QR code was used instead of whatever this requirement of needing a waiter to take your order. Do you not see how ridiculous that is. You came in, ordered food, someone cooked it, they brought it to you, you ate it while sitting down. You might have even ordered drinks too. You might have even done that with friends or family. How is that not a sit down place? Your definition is trivial and not really useful, but sure, it’s me needlessly being picky with words

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

#256

Post by dataviz1000 »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #207
dataviz1000 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I linked the Cheesecake Factory 2022 report below. I asked chat-gpt for some analysis and didn't double check the math so take with grain of salt. When you take into account the largest costs for Cheesecake Factory is labor of which 50% is waitstaff and leases for prime locations, profits from on premises alcohol sales do not compare to profits from takeout. If 11% of sales are alcohol at 20–25% of the menu price and…

Cheesecake Factory isn’t representative of restaurant businesses. It’s like saying restaurants should be more like McDonalds, or startups should be more like Google.

I'm using extra data to add to the original study—which found that off-premise takeout and delivery increased from 50% to 60% after the pandemic leading to higher sales per employee—to show that extra costs like lease payments, insurance, wages for waitstaff, and utilities don’t fully offset the slightly higher profit margins from selling alcohol on premise compared to selling food and non-alcoholic drinks through takeout or delivery. Using financial data, I demonstrate higher off premises takeout or delivery leads to higher sales per employee -- the same conclusion the paper we are discussing made.

Notably, the paper shows that the share of visits lasting 11–20 minutes did not drop (and even increased a bit). This indicates that the overall shorter visit times aren’t because dine-in customers are being served faster. Instead, it’s mainly due to a rise in takeout and delivery orders (takeout customers are being served slower because there are more, if you follow.) In other words, even if people wait a bit longer for their takeout, the large number of takeout orders is what lowers the average time customers spend at the restaurant which corresponds to the higher sales per employee. (If you disagree with this interpretation, please refer to the study, as that is its main argument.)

My point is that even though alcohol generally has a higher markup, the extra overhead needed to sell alcohol on premise means that its profit margins do not fully make up for those costs compared to off-premise takeout or delivery. Moreover, the data from The Cheesecake Factory, ~25% off premises takeout or deliver sale, is similar to what is seen in any traditionally dine-in U.S. restaurant, corporate or mom and pop, that isn’t Michelin starred.

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

#257

Post by infecto »

dylan604 wrote: post #255
infecto wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be trying to pick at words needlessly. Why does Covid matter now?

Because the same restaurant was considered a sit down joint and then it wasn’t because a QR code was used instead of whatever this requirement of needing a waiter to take your order. Do you not see how ridiculous that is. You came in, ordered food, someone cooked it, they brought it to you, you ate it while sitting down. You might have even ordered drinks too. You might have even done that with friends or family. How…

What are you even going on about? QR codes make no real difference. Though in America I have not seen many great implementations and I would guess many would be fast food or fast casual. It’s the level of service being provided. It implies you are spending time eating with a level of service being provided. Weird

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

#258

Post by hansvm »

safety1st wrote: post #138
colonial wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd like to know are the demographics of the people using the delivery apps. Everyone I know refuses to touch them due to the massive extra costs piled on top, but whenever I swing by somewhere in-person to get takeout, I have the same experience as you - there's always at least a few bags on the "Doordash shelf" or equivalent. Who's burning all this money?!

This seems to be the opposite of the trend but personally, due to some mixture of inflation, worsening service standards from the main delivery app where I live, and me just getting better at cooking, I've dialed back my food delivery app usage by like 80%. Covid encouraged me to spend more time cooking and the result is that I now make better versions of most of my favorite dishes than any restaurant does (at least…

Another strategy I like for groceries is walking to the store during my "lunch" break each day. It's never busy, you get used to the layout and can shop faster, it's easier to only choose ripe produce and to be selective with temporal price variations, it makes it easier to plan meals around produce that's ripening faster than you want, and you don't have the chore of dealing with a whole basket of groceries.

It still takes 2+ hours of work every week, but I was going to be walking or doing some sort of light exercise eventually anyway, and the mental break helps with focus on coding the second half of the day.

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

#259

Post by antifa »

j_timberlake wrote: post #69
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…

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.

Good luck getting permission to fly drones within X miles of an airport.

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

#260

Post by whatever1 »

How people can afford take out? Uber eats etc charge rates are insane like 20$ per order (don’t forget the driver tip). I also noticed they have a variable cost as well aka if you order food worth 100$ you pay more compared to if the food was 50$. Like this adds to the delivery cost.
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