Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Restaurants seem less likely to deliver an economic boost
WASHINGTON — Restaurants helped revive the U.S. economy after the Great Recession of 20072009.
This time?
Don’t count on it. As the nation struggles to rebound from a now-resurgent coronavirus, restaurants seem much less likely to deliver an economic boost. They’ve suffered a heavy blow from lockdowns and occupancy restrictions, and it’s unclear how readily Americans will return en masse to dining out.
Consider the Barrel Room, a San Francisco wine bar and restaurant whose owner cautiously reopened this month, hoping to salvage as much of 2020 as possible. To stay afloat after a lockdown took effect in March, the restaurant tried selling groceries and delivering alcoholic drinks to customers.
Owner Sarah Trubnick also fought through red tape to obtain federal aid — a process she likened to living in a Franz Kafka novel.
As confirmed infections climb, Trubnick is bracing for the worst. “We are prepared at any minute to close again,” she said. “It’s a very stressful situation.”
Across the nation, millions of restaurant jobs have vanished in the face of lockdowns. Just when eateries of all categories and price levels had been anticipating a summertime comeback, new viral cases are upending everything.
The damage extends beyond darkened kitchens and dining rooms to the farms and wineries that supply them and the shopping centers that have grown to depend on restaurants as anchors to replace now-vanished stores that couldn’t compete with Amazon and Walmart.
Chris Shepherd, owner and executive chef of Underbelly Hospitality in Houston, said in an online essay that he might have to close his four restaurants because his company’s revenue is just 30% of what it was a year ago.
“I employ 200 people in this community,” Shepherd wrote. “When I shut down, they lose their jobs. I’m no longer able to pay my farmers, cleaning companies, valet companies, linen companies, wineries, distilleries. Our reach is long.”
Before the pandemic, restaurants had employed 11 million workers nationwide — more than the number who work in construction or in factories that produce high-priced manufactured goods. They generated more revenue than grocery stores. From 1990 through February this year, restaurant jobs grew more than twice as fast (91%) as overall jobs (40%).
“The restaurant industry’s role in the economy is outsized compared to its share of overall GDP,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “As it is often among the first jobs for many workers, it is critical to the training of the American workforce. It is also a vital source of jobs and incomes for lesserskilled and educated workers.”
The struggles in the restaurant industry also disproportionately hurt Black and Latino workers. Together, they account for more than 40% of restaurant jobs, versus 30% of overall U.S. jobs.
As restaurants and bars reluctantly closed their dining rooms, their sales sank from $66 billion in February to $30 billion by April — the lowest such total, adjusted since inflation, since 1983. In June, boosted by delivery and takeout customers, sales rebounded to $47 billion. But many restaurants desperately need to reopen their dining rooms.
“You cannot profitably run a takeover-delivery model if you also have 60 dark tables in the front of the house,” said Sean Kennedy of the National Restaurant Association.
Restaurants had cut nearly 5.4 million jobs in March and April before restoring 1.4 million of them as states began to reopen in May.
But the bounce-back is in jeopardy. Confirmed cases have surged across the South and West, forcing states to slow or reverse plans to reopen.
Zandi said he worries that restaurant jobs won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until the mid-2020s.