Of course the menu needs to be different. Stuff that works in a restaurant may not work after 30-60 minutes of delivery time. And all of that fancy plating is useless when the meal is put in a box and thrown around during the delivery process.
That is certainly the nightmare scenario that the whole industry is hoping like heck does not come to pass.
I agree with you that it is certainly one of the more likely ways this shakes out. If the airline industry does implode so will the tourist industries throughout the sun’n’fun areas of the Southern US, Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the Gulf, the Med, Australia, etc.
Moving beyond the specifics of the travel & related industries, I have commented here more than once that the US economy is about 70% consumer spending of which IMO 60-some percent is what I call frivolous. Frequent restaurant outings, lots of travel, newer & nicer cars than necessary, $60K pickup trucks, subscriptions to 6 streaming services instead of 1, etc., are all examples of people blowing their excess income on excess spending above & beyond functional and good-enough quality of life.
In a crunch when most / all that disappears, that’s a third or more of the US economy’s total GDP / revenue / spending. And probably an even larger fraction of employment.
Once we get that negative feedback loop started it’ll pick up speed like a mofo & we’ll be looking at another 1929, not another 2008. Climbing out of that hole will require revisiting the major infrastructure projects like the Interstate highways system, like CHina has been doing for the last 40ish years, etc. A very different USA indeed.
The other high income countries are unbalanced in the same way albeit to differing degrees. And each is at risk of a death spiral down the same hole albeit with differing starting points and differing rates of acceleration.
This, and other related ideas, are things I think we might see.
Coming out the other side of this, the separation between the Haves and the Have Nots will likely be wider. There are plenty of people that can afford to fly if airline tickets 2x or 3x from current prices. I’d guess the airlines would rather cater to that demographic and increase prices than go out of business. Economically speaking, the lockdown is more damaging to the lower- and middle-class than the upper class. People with money can pay for tutors, food delivery, second homes in the country, etc. White collar workers are also more likely to be able to work from home and earn their full wage. The lower- and middle-class are not nearly as flexible, and with the likely end of the $600/week unemployment bonus, will be in for a world of hurt. People either have to work or receive support from the government. The current path the US is on doesn’t seem sustainable.
Definitely. I was just thinking that a big piece of the capital requirements for opening a new restaurant is centered around the dining room and whatever unique decor/branding goes with it.
Without that, you don’t need much more than a spot in a strip mall and some delivery vehicles to get going. So the barriers to entry are even lower. That’s why I was speculating that delivery-only might end up being a bigger thing in the future in many areas. (I know it’s a big deal already in more built-up urban areas anyway)
I actually see something different happening- I see the number of flights and/or destinations going way down.
So rather than having SWA fly between Dallas and Houston like 8-10 times a day, that might shrink to 3. And they may fly to New Orleans from Dallas every other day. And so on… maybe Corpus Christi gets one flight a week or something.
I just have a suspicion they’re more likely to cut routes and flights instead of raising fares through the roof.
If you’re losing money on every flight, cutting the number of flights only helps a little. With 90 people on a 737 instead of 180, the airline will have to double its fare.
This is ssuming empty seats/space because they need to cram less people in, not that there is less demand to fly. If the pandemic “ends” then they won’t have to stop cramming people close together on flights and it can return more to normal. Demand might be reduced post-pandemic because people hare learned ways to avoid travel.
Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I expect airline travel to return, more or less in its pre-pandemic form, with millions of people traveling for leisure and business every day. If that’s not possible, all sorts of stuff is in question. Like trade shows and conferences, with hundreds or thousands of people interacting in a conference center. Or major tourism destinations like Disney World or Times Square. All of those places have lots of people from all over the world interacting very closely.
Economic collapses tend to make people be a lot more tight fisted.
And “major tourism destinations” need both disposable money and relative ease of travel to be profitable. International travel plans at least, these days is a patchwork or confusing as fuck regs, and there is no gaurantee that will not change. Right now for many places you need the permission of your home and country of travel to well, travel. And these are a lot more onerous to get than before.
I don’t know what will happen to the restaurant business in New York after all this.
Let’s say that C19 disappeared tomorrow. The virus just vanished from the face of the earth. It’s gone, it’s done, we know it will never come back.
Would the restaurant business come back?
I have a feeling that the business was due for a correction anyway. “Foodie culture” (I hate that term, but I can’t think of a better one) had gotten way out of hand. People, younger people especially (twenties and thirties) spent a ridiculous portion of their income on dining out. Or ordering in. Way, way out of proportion to what was the norm when I was growing up, or was that age myself.
It was fashion, basically. Eating was now what people did and talked about and thought was important. I mean ridiculously important.
And, as a result, there were more restaurants than the city could support. The slightest change in behavior would throw the whole thing out of balance.
Even without C19, things were going to change somehow. Sure, C19 amplified everything, but it was bound to happen.
Basically, the restaurant business in NYC was a bubble. Bubbles burst.
To a certain extent, I’m reminded of how, in the days after 9/11, there were all sorts of crazy proposals for how one would escape a major fire in a skyscraper. People had suggestions for parachutes or evacuation chutes or whatever. But nothing ever came of any of that, because an event like what happened at the World Trade Center in 2001 was really rare. (Which isn’t to say there weren’t changes; certainly flying is more complicated post-9/11.)
In the same way, the coronavirus pandemic is a once-in-a-century event. I don’t see redesigning planes to allow for six-foot distance between passengers or eliminating spectators at sporting events. Certainly the governments should do a better job of tracking infectious diseases and stockpiling medical gear. (Although given how many masks were needed, it was never going to be possible to have enough stored in advance.)
Looks like your wishes are going to come true. Now those young people can get back to paying down those student loans!
My wishes? I didn’t and don’t wish for any of this, or for any business to fail.
It was just an observation and a bit of speculation.
Thought I sensed a bit of schadenfreude in your post. I apologize if I misinterpreted.
Here’s the thing though, they’re saying that 2400 separate, distinct restaurant entities are not going to reopen. In other words, “Carmine’s Pizza and Pasta” may not reopen, but that doesn’t mean that in a relatively short time, another red sauce joint won’t spring open.
In other words, they’re not saying that the future total of restaurants in the city will be 2000, but rather that 2400 of the currently open restaurants may not reopen.
Which really says that there will be a huge business opportunity for people wanting to open restaurants after the pandemic is over, or has significantly lessened to the point where people are eating in restaurants again. There’s a sort of equilibrium between the number of restaurants and the number of people dining out- if there aren’t enough restaurants, lines will be long, prices will be higher, etc… and that’s like a siren song to restauranteurs and wannabe restauranteurs to open more restaurants. Conversely, if you’re oversupplied, places don’t make it and shut. Which you see ALL THE TIME in most cities with an active dining scene.
I suppose if you’re really hung up on a specific restaurant, then it’s terrible, but unless a city has some sort of gross oversupply of restaurants like Saintly_Loser suggests, the industry is liable to rebound relatively quickly.
As opposed to what? Non-existent restaurants closing for good?
I mean, I guess. If we burned down 50% of houses, it’d also be a great opportunity for homebuilders.
A lot of people are assuming that restaurants closing permanently right NOW means that the total number of restaurants is going to go down permanently as well. Like there’ll be no replacements opening, which is nonsense. There will be plenty of replacement restaurants- that’s kind of my point. Maybe not as many total restaurants as there were in January, but there will be a pretty strong rebound.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at- in ANY business, if there are customers being underserved, there’s a lot of incentive for people to get in there and make money from it. And I suspect when this is all over, there will be a LOT of restaurant demand.
So in the middle/long term, we’re not going to have a restaurant shortage. Maybe in the months following the removal of restrictions/lockdown, but that’ll end fairly quickly.
As for working from home, that has never appealed to me. And it makes me think of an old newspaper colleague back in Bangkok. For a while he had a stint with The South China Morning Post out of Hong Kong. He edited for them five days a week from his home in Bangkok,where he lived alone. Personal hygiene was the first to go. It went downhill from there. He finally gave it up to find a job in a local newspaper office. He said it forced him to make an effort.
There may not be a rebound of the kind of small, independent, family-owned mostly ethnic restaurants that I normally patronize, though, because their owners are going to be broke and unable to open a new place if their current place goes belly-up.
Inshallah.
…New Zealand is pretty much back to normal, so here’s a bit of perspective from down under.
I’m not shaking hands. Not with anyone new, anyway. I don’t know how widespread that is, and how many other people aren’t doing the handshake, but I didn’t realise I wasn’t shaking hands until I met someone a few days ago and realised that we just kinda nodded our heads and that was it. Obviously anecdotal, of course.
As for mass gatherings, well they started almost as soon as we dropped to Level One.
So apart from the handshakes I haven’t really noticed very much else that has changed. Wellington Airport (almost completely dedicated to domestic flights) isn’t as busy as it used to be, I drive past it every few days and there is a fraction of the cars waiting to pick people up. Cafes, restaurants, buffet places all seem to be back open again. Social distancing kept being a thing for about a week, but not any more. If I think of anything else I’ll add them to the thread. However I suspect that the longer you are in lockdown and the more horrific a lockdown experience you have (with rates of death, etc) will affect what permanent changes you will see.