# The Mom and Pop shops are NOT coming back in my neck of the woods. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [June 11, 2020, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457 "2020-06-11T14:56:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/41 "2020-06-13T02:48:50Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Yeah, “people will forget what a restaurant is” is loco. Hotel restaurants will do fine - as soon as people start staying in hotels again. But some of the “can’t cook, don’t cook” crowd will have discovered that they can cook and might reduce their dependency on restaurants. The question is, can the new environment support all the restaurants we had pre-virus. I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/42 "2020-06-13T02:52:12Z")
> [@bump](#): > > People don’t like to cook unless they have to. And they like doing dishes even less. So there’ll always be a market for restaurants, and I suspect like I was saying, that most of the restaurants that are going to fail already have, and that new ones will spring up to replace them in short order. A year or two from the end of the pandemic, and we won’t see any fewer restaurants than we would have, had this whole thing not happened in the first place. _ahem_ For the most part I’d much rather cook than go to a restaurant, and so does my wife. Both my kids and their husbands like to cook. How many people are going to discover that the can cook a lot better burger than fast food for 1/5 the cost? And can restaurants that cram people in and thus cause another outbreak survive another shutdown? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/43 "2020-06-13T04:17:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > _ahem_ For the most part I’d much rather cook than go to a restaurant, and so does my wife. Both my kids and their husbands like to cook. > How many people are going to discover that the can cook a lot better burger than fast food for 1/5 the cost? And can restaurants that cram people in and thus cause another outbreak survive another shutdown? I meant in general. For what it’s worth, my family has had exactly ONE non-home cooked meal since March 11th, and that was picking up hamburgers at Whataburger on the way home from a strawberry picking farm about a month ago. Otherwise it’s been home cooking the entire time. Of course, that does include stuff like sandwiches and hotdogs. But that’s us. We were accomplished cooks and bakers prior to the pandemic, and all this did was make us meal-plan a bit more, and be more creative with what we have. Most people weren’t/aren’t so interested in cooking. Not for 3 meals a day for months on end, anyway. There are a LOT of people who eat out all the time/ate out all the time, and who want to go back to that, as they’re sick of canned soup and frozen pizzas and takeout. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/44 "2020-06-13T04:28:58Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > _ahem_ For the most part I’d much rather cook than go to a restaurant, and so does my wife. Both my kids and their husbands like to cook. > How many people are going to discover that the can cook a lot better burger than fast food for 1/5 the cost? And can restaurants that cram people in and thus cause another outbreak survive another shutdown? Good for you! But, a lot of us hate cooking all the time, especially when you’re single and live alone. And, for many cuisines, you just don’t have the basics laying around. Hell, produce goes quickly unless you’re watching it and non stop planning around it. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/45 "2020-06-13T04:58:47Z")
Omg. We aren’t be having a discussion about whether restaurants will be a thing in 5 years. Someone tell me that I’m hallucinating/browser has been hijacked. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/46 "2020-06-13T14:05:54Z")
There is zero chance that eating out is going away. The last few decades has seen a dramatic surge in interest in eating for pleasure in many countries. Expectations are higher, quality is higher. Loyalty from customers is a thing. That is not going away. Businesses that were based on serving crap food to people who they didn’t care that they never saw again have been falling away already. The loss of travellers and tourists will have simply accelerated their demise. There will be businesses that don’t come back. But as noted above, some won’t because they were already looking to get out, some were on the edge of viability anyway, and some will have been driven under by unsympathetic creditors. But so long as there is a demand for some good or service, someone will try to make money. Where there is chaos there is opportunity, and what may happen, is that larger corporations will use the chance to expand into areas vacated by small players. This is IMHO a serious downside. I can’t see the large food players making much in the way of inroads where I am, but it in other goods and services it could easily be a problem. Whether the likes of Amazon manage to make permanent gains on the back of the virus will be interesting to see. I think they have already done the damage they were going to do to the small players, they are now in the game of wiping out the bigger retail chains. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/47 "2020-06-13T15:50:03Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Yes. > > One of the best restaurants in town […] I don’t know what town you mean. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/48 "2020-06-13T16:00:09Z")
I agree, the idea that restaurants, which have been around about as long as civilization and maybe as long as buildings, are going to just stop existing because of this pandemic is silly. A number of places will close or change owners, so there may be fewer for a while, but others will stay open and more will open in the future. Epidemics and pandemics have been with us throughout history (and again, probably before) in some cases killing 25-75% of the people living in an area (for example, the Black death killed approximately 50% of the population of Europe), but it hasn’t made people decide to stop getting together to eat food that someone else prepared for them. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/49 "2020-06-13T18:02:42Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > The US doesn’t need to pay off the debt. It only needs to service it and roll it over. There’s a mod note so I’ll keep this short & sweet but I think I’m allowed to correct your statement - every tax $ going towards interest/debt service is not going towards another government function, whether that’s military, entitlement programs, or infrastructure creation/maint/replacement. More debt either means more taxes or less services, including things like the SBA. Further discussion of where that number should be is probably best for another thread. > [@bump](#): > > So there’ll always be a market for restaurants, and I suspect like I was saying, that most of the restaurants that are going to fail already have, and that new ones will spring up to replace them in short order. **A year or two from the end of the pandemic, and we won’t see any fewer restaurants than we would have** , had this whole thing not happened in the first place. a) Restaurants are being artificially propped up with PPP loans right now; they aren’t allowed to even reopen yet, & when they do, they’ll only be allowed maybe 50% seating capacity. Their model doesn’t work at 40-50% capacity; many will atempt to reopen but throw in the towel after a few months when they realize the new normal doesn’t cut it anymore. b) The entertainment/discretionary spending industry has & will continue to be decimated by this. Restaurants, movie theaters, airlines, hotels, MiLB stadiums, etc. can’t survive in the long term on such reduced capacity/income. The event part of the entertainment world - concerts, festivals, firehouse carnivals, (running, triathlon, etc.) races won’t happen this year. Sponsorship money will be down because many of those companies that provide sponsorship dollars will be hurting. Production companies won’t come back because they can’t just take a year off with no income. The people who work in these worlds won’t be able to afford restaurants like they did a few months ago; that will cause more of them to close. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/50 "2020-06-13T18:24:10Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Ours weren’t entirely closed; they’ve been able to do takeout/drivethrough and delivery the entire time. Plenty of nicer sit-down places adapted in a matter of a few weeks, and at least anecdotally based on social media and comments from other people I know, lots of people have been ordering a lot of takeout for the past several months. And now that they’re actually open, they seem to be doing banner business. > > People don’t like to cook unless they have to. And they like doing dishes even less. So there’ll always be a market for restaurants, and I suspect like I was saying, that most of the restaurants that are going to fail already have, and that new ones will spring up to replace them in short order. A year or two from the end of the pandemic, and we won’t see any fewer restaurants than we would have, had this whole thing not happened in the first place. > > I don’t really think a few months of lockdown are going to somehow change people’s lifetime ingrained habits and preferences. Based on what I’ve seen, more people are interpreting a “measured” unlocking as being more of a “No more lockdown!” free-for-all. Not good for the actual spread of disease, and pretty idiotic, but good from an economic perspective, at least temporarily. And it bodes well for after the pandemic as well. > [@CarnalK](#): > > Yeah, “people will forget what a restaurant is” is loco. > [@CarnalK](#): > > Omg. We aren’t be having a discussion about whether restaurants will be a thing in 5 years. Someone tell me that I’m hallucinating/browser has been hijacked. > [@Pantastic](#): > > I agree, the idea that restaurants, which have been around about as long as civilization and maybe as long as buildings, are going to just stop existing because of this pandemic is silly. A number of places will close or change owners, so there may be fewer for a while, but others will stay open and more will open in the future. Epidemics and pandemics have been with us throughout history (and again, probably before) in some cases killing 25-75% of the people living in an area (for example, the Black death killed approximately 50% of the population of Europe), but it hasn’t made people decide to stop getting together to eat food that someone else prepared for them. :dubious: I’ve read my post over several times now, and I still don’t see where I made any sort of statements of absolute, like “No one will remember what a restaurant is” or “All people will forget what a restaurant is”. **bump** said that there would not be a dent after a year of being past the lockdowns. That was what I was disagreeing with. I think it will take a long time for the restaurant industry to recover. I do think that demand for restaurants is going to be much lower, and take a while to get back to where it was. People have gotten used to cooking at home, or getting take out rather than dine-in. These are habits that people will have for quite a while after the restaurants open back to full capacity. Also, **bump** said “after a few months” but it’s going to be more like 18-24 months before restaurants are able to go back to full capacity. That’s a long time to ingrain a new habit. And there will be many restaurants that close. They will not be able to be profitable running at partial capacity. Delivery and take-out may help to offset losses, but are going to have a hard time actually paying the bills. Many small restaurants will go under, and what you are left with will be mostly your Applebees and Fridays and crap like that, which I think will further depress restaurant sales. Given _enough_ time, and no further pandemics that require social distancing measures again, then sure, people will start eating out again, and that demand will stir people to open up new venues for them to do so. My timeline on a full recovery is more like 10 years, at the very least 5. I do not share **bump** ’s optimism that the restaurant industry will make a complete recovery within a year. ETA: and that is all assuming that we don’t end up in a massive recession. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/51 "2020-06-13T19:03:08Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > :dubious: I’ve read my post over several times now, and I still don’t see where I made any sort of statements of absolute, like “No one will remember what a restaurant is” or “All people will forget what a restaurant is”. > > **bump** said that there would not be a dent after a year of being past the lockdowns. That was what I was disagreeing with. I think it will take a long time for the restaurant industry to recover. > > I do think that demand for restaurants is going to be much lower, and take a while to get back to where it was. People have gotten used to cooking at home, or getting take out rather than dine-in. These are habits that people will have for quite a while after the restaurants open back to full capacity. Also, **bump** said “after a few months” but it’s going to be more like 18-24 months before restaurants are able to go back to full capacity. That’s a long time to ingrain a new habit. > > And there will be many restaurants that close. They will not be able to be profitable running at partial capacity. Delivery and take-out may help to offset losses, but are going to have a hard time actually paying the bills. > > Many small restaurants will go under, and what you are left with will be mostly your Applebees and Fridays and crap like that, which I think will further depress restaurant sales. > > Given _enough_ time, and no further pandemics that require social distancing measures again, then sure, people will start eating out again, and that demand will stir people to open up new venues for them to do so. My timeline on a full recovery is more like 10 years, at the very least 5. I do not share **bump** ’s optimism that the restaurant industry will make a complete recovery within a year. > > ETA: and that is all assuming that we don’t end up in a massive recession. I really disagree that all we will be left with is big chains. Restaurants fail all the time and nothing to do with pandemics. Too often you get people opening them with a lot of passion but perhaps not as much business sense. But, a lot of local restaurants have flexibility as an asset which a big chain won’t have. A local place can change the menu overnight and their focus as well. A local place can open with a happy hour menu available, selling some inexpensive appetizers along with lots of alcohol which is a money maker. Especially urban places with patios that often have more attractive patio settings than a suburban chain which features a view of a parking lot. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/52 "2020-06-13T19:17:26Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I meant in general. For what it’s worth, my family has had exactly ONE non-home cooked meal since March 11th, and that was picking up hamburgers at Whataburger on the way home from a strawberry picking farm about a month ago. > > Otherwise it’s been home cooking the entire time. Of course, that does include stuff like sandwiches and hotdogs. > > But that’s us. We were accomplished cooks and bakers prior to the pandemic, and all this did was make us meal-plan a bit more, and be more creative with what we have. > > Most people weren’t/aren’t so interested in cooking. Not for 3 meals a day for months on end, anyway. There are a LOT of people who eat out all the time/ate out all the time, and who want to go back to that, as they’re sick of canned soup and frozen pizzas and takeout. I know plenty of people who hate to cook. The Times ran a story about people who had trouble learning to cook including a woman at Texas A & M who couldn’t figure out that she had to read the directions on her frozen pizza and ruined it. You cook a lot - but do you like to? My father came from a restaurant family so I learned to cook from him long before it was cool for men to cook at home. I think people living in cities cook less because of the options. When we rented an AirBnB in New York we almost always ate out because though we had a decent kitchen there were tons of great little restaurants on the same block as us. I was objecting to the universal. And I suspect people who don’t cook can find easy recipes if they want to. We have cookbooks full of them, and they are easy to find online. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/53 "2020-06-13T19:23:54Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Good for you! But, a lot of us hate cooking all the time, especially when you’re single and live alone. And, for many cuisines, you just don’t have the basics laying around. Hell, produce goes quickly unless you’re watching it and non stop planning around it. When you go into a new cuisine (or start cooking at all) there are start up costs. But pretty soon you build up a stock of all you need. Produce is great, but frozen veg works also. I cooked all the time when I was single. I even cooked the last two years I lived in a dorm, using a toaster oven and hot plate. (Long before microwaves were available for consumers.) It is definitely something you get better at. We plan a week’s meals in advance before we go shopping, and make sure we get what we need for them. Hardly non-stop. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/54 "2020-06-13T19:24:52Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I really disagree that all we will be left with is big chains. Restaurants fail all the time and nothing to do with pandemics. Too often you get people opening them with a lot of passion but perhaps not as much business sense. But, a lot of local restaurants have flexibility as an asset which a big chain won’t have. A local place can change the menu overnight and their focus as well. A local place can open with a happy hour menu available, selling some inexpensive appetizers along with lots of alcohol which is a money maker. Especially urban places with patios that often have more attractive patio settings than a suburban chain which features a view of a parking lot. Once again, I did not say all. I did say many, which I can extend to mean most. And we are not talking about how restaurants fail all the time, you are right, they do. But we are talking about a massive number of restaurants, many of which have been around for a good long time, all going under at the same time. Sure, there are niche places here and there that will manage to keep a good crowd. Some places have attractive patios. But what about all the suburban mom and pop shops with a view of a parking lot? Unless the landlord gives you a break, your rent stays the same. Utilities are not that much different from being slow to being busy. Labor and production doesn’t scale linearly. I can do twice with 8 what I can do with 5. A restaurant does not make money unless it is over 80-90% capacity. They just don’t. Now, maybe you can reformulate that business model, but it’s going to result in much higher prices. I remember not all that long ago that there were those (I have no idea if it were any of you, and in fact, one of the biggest opponents is no longer with us) who argued that an increase in MW would cause restaurants to go out of business because they would have to raise their prices by 5%-10%. If a store has to operate at 50% capacity, they are going to need to raise their prices by a whole lot more than 10% to stay in the black. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/55 "2020-06-13T19:57:08Z")
Lots of little restaurants near me are family run, which means that most of their workers are in the same family. They are going to stay open because otherwise the family would still need to find work if they close, which is going to be tough. I wonder if more people working from home is going to hurt them going forward. It is a lot easier to cook if you have time during the day to do prep or start something. Take out or a restaurant is more appealing if you both get home at 7 pm. And there will be a lot more work from home than there used to be. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/56 "2020-06-14T01:09:33Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > … > > A restaurant does not make money unless it is over 80-90% capacity. They just don’t. Now, maybe you can reformulate that business model, but it’s going to result in much higher prices. > … Cite? Because I see lots of restaurants, successful restaurants, which half or more table empty during lunch or dinner. Mind you- most restaurants fail anyway. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/57 "2020-06-14T04:10:46Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Cite? Because I see lots of restaurants, successful restaurants, which half or more table empty during lunch or dinner. > > Mind you- most restaurants fail anyway. On Friday and Saturday night though? Yeah, during the week they usually have specials to try to bring people in. But having to limit their peak attendance is going to mean raised prices if they want to stay in business. It definitely will happen since absolutely every restaurant will be facing the same constraint. Far fewer of them will survive because there won’t be the market at the prices that will be needed. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/58 "2020-06-14T04:48:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Cite? Because I see lots of restaurants, successful restaurants, which half or more table empty during lunch or dinner. > > Mind you- most restaurants fail anyway. And of course, it depends on their business model. Do they do a ton of carry out and delivery and aren’t depending on alcohol sales? Or, is it a place with ok food for lunch but they do a massive finger food and happy hour business starting at 4? Maybe they do a ton of catering business and the walk in business is a bonus? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/59 "2020-06-14T12:33:52Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I’m not sure as to your final point either, I think that by the time we get past the lock downs, people will forget what a restaurant is, and find it kinda weird to eat in a room surrounded by strangers. It takes a while to make or break habits, but this is gonna be a long long while. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > :dubious: I’ve read my post over several times now, and I still don’t see where I made any sort of statements of absolute, like “No one will remember what a restaurant is” or “All people will forget what a restaurant is”. Are you complaining that you didn’t use the word “all”? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457/60 "2020-06-14T12:47:28Z")
If you see a Chinese place and nail salon in the same shopping center sometimes mom does nails and dad does the food. And of course mom and dad can help each other out too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mom-and-pop-shops-are-not-coming-back-in-my-neck-of-the-woods/855457.md?page=4)