COVID-19 Has Not Been An ‘Extinction-Level Event’ For Restaurants, At Least Not Yet
Restaurants in Free Fall! 110,000 already shuttered! 17% of the total nationwide! There have been lots of these screaming headlines in recent weeks since the National Restaurant Association issued its dire report (link below). Yet while 110,000 seems like a very big number, keep in mind that, according to the NRA, 50,000 restaurants close in a “normal” year. And if 10K have shuttered in the last 3 months, that would only translate to 40K annualized, less than that 50K yearly average. These figures also do not account for the 51K new restaurant openings in just the first 9 months of 2020 (38K since March), according to Yelp. Mind you, I do not mean to minimize the carnage, and no doubt it varies widely across sub-category, district and type of ownership (with independently-owned, sit-down concepts in CBD’s and eateries in lower-income neighborhoods faring the worst), but clearly this is not – at least not yet – the cataclysmic, “extinction-level” event that had been feared in the spring.