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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

#261

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

jajko wrote: post #174
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…

Hmm, did they lower their price correspondingly, at least compared to competition? Because I don't go to restaurants to just eat, albeit fine food, I go for whole experience, environment. Something clicks in each human brain and we have this bubble of different vibes, for lack of better words. Plus social aspects. Same reason alcoholics or anybody else still go to bars in droves, despite being able to just buy same a…

>Michelin * are different but again the ambience is top priority there too, you won't get the star just for stellar food.

Au contraire: >A Michelin Star is awarded for the food on the plate – nothing else. The style of a restaurant and its degree of formality or informality have no bearing whatsoever on the award.

https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/features/what-is-a-...

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

#262

Post by laidoffamazon »

colonial wrote: post #65
alwa wrote: post #36

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.…

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?!

The American people have literally never been richer than the last 5 years. It’s mass affluence - the people door dashing are the newly mass affluent. It’s why the lines for ski lifts are so long and why Disney world is so packed

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

#263

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

lukeschlather wrote: post #199
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.

No, they did measure them, they just didn't bother to value them. People are spending less time in the restaurants (<10 minutes.) People spending time in the restaurants are getting service (cleaning etc.) and use of the space/dishes. They aren't accounting for these services.

I’m not sure I agree it’s entirely measurable. Often when something becomes more productive at the expense of something, that something is the comfort of being in the place or the friendliness of the staff or… and these things are intrinsically tough to measure. Not unmeasurable I suppose, but challenging by comparison.

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

#264

Post by bfdm »

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.

Dying or becoming disable long term are also pretty bad for socializing. Anyone trying to take reasonable precautions for themselves or to protect vulnerable people around them has pretty much been jettisoned by society. Restaurants and bars are not the only way to socialize, but being unwilling to participate in those becomes a social death sentence.

I have a pet hypothesis that there is high correlation between the people choosing precautions and those who did the social & emotional labour of organizing and cohering in the before times. I'm not suggesting anything has stopped, clearly it hasn't. But it does sound like what remains is a thinner gruel barely covering the bottom of the pot.

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

#265

Post by horsawlarway »

dehrmann wrote: post #221
horsawlarway wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Marketplace on NPR covered this yesterday and came to essentially the same conclusion. It's not that productivity is genuinely up, it's that modern restaurants are providing a different product. Takeout/delivery to eat on your couch has different economics than a full service restaurant. Phrasing it as productivity is disingenuous.

Nit: Marketplace is an APM show--essentially a competitor of NPR. "NPR" has just become shorthand for "public radio."

Marketplace is aired on my local NPR station (WABE). APM is syndicated and broadcast on several different channels.

I happen to listen to Marketplace on NPR, not Marketplace by NPR.

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

#266

Post by rad_gruchalski »

bigiain wrote: post #140
t-3 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they going to get the right apartment, and even if they do, what if the food gets fumbled in the handover and someone is injured by falling meals?

"We add a $70 surcharge to each delivery for the ballistic parachute system that protects people on the sidewalk from fumbled delivery handovers. This surcharge is refunded when the intact and unused parachute system is returned via the drone from your next delivery."

How do you shoot that used delivery parachute back to the drone upon next delivery?

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

#267

Post by florbnit »

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.

Food trucks are also more productive and since the study is a look at the market you’re part of the data that supports the industry increase in productive due to your switch from dine-in to food trucks.

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

#268

Post by boppo1 »

contingencies wrote: post #68
satvikpendem wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghost restaurants, essentially. Incidentally, I wonder what Travis Kalanick and his company CloudKitchens is up to now that he doesn't run Uber anymore.

Basically it seems after expanding to >30 countries then realizing COVID growth would not continue, rationalizing operations, and figuring out the model of ghost kitchens is limited in growth potential with significant customer and platform backlash TK's been trying to automate the production side using the "former self driving team" of Uber at a Cloud Kitchen subsidiary called Lab37. https://www.lab37.us/ However, t…

How'd that go in China? Robot-burger flipping always seemed cool. With the level of automation they otherwise employ, why isn't McDonald's doing it yet?

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

#269

Post by horsawlarway »

dehrmann wrote: post #236
brians wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Marketplace airs on NPR stations. I have Windows on a Dell, and I hear Marketplace on NPR.

Marketplace airs on stations that might happen to also air NPR. It's more like dual booting Windows and Linux on your Dell that has a Windows sticker on it.

APM and NPR are both syndicated content, but it's not quite the same.

The local stations mostly call themselves NPR stations (NPR member stations) and they explicitly include NPR branding (ex - right in the logo for mine: https://www.wabe.org/) and pay membership dues to NPR in addition to content licensing.

APM also has its own set of stations, but the list is much smaller. Plus - basically the only content from APM on my NPR station is Marketplace.

It's "NPR" for all intents and purposes. It's not dual booting, it's like a linux machine running WINE for a single application.

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

#270

Post by Larrikin »

vikingerik wrote: post #176
dataviz1000 wrote: post #156

Simple. The overhead on takeout is far less than dine-in although the menu items cost the same. Dine-in costs include base waitstaff salary and workman's comp, cleaning crew and dishwashers, electricity, insurance, ect.. while takeout requires the very small cost of packaging. Something that always bugs me is restaurants that charge $2 or $5 surcharge for takeout. I'm saving the restaurant a ton of money by not using…

> Something that always bugs me is restaurants that charge $2 or $5 surcharge for takeout. I'm saving the restaurant a ton of money by not using the dining room, why would they discourage that? Because takeout isn't competing with the dining room. Customers don't go to a restaurant and then choose between those options; they've already planned whether to eat in or out. Restauraunts charge that because customers have…

But it discourages me from ever ordering there again. There's a lot of restaurants out there. A now out of business restaurant charged the equivalent of a tip for takeout. I ate there once and just walked to the restaurant across the street that didn't charge me extra for take out.
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