Our Restaurants Are Suffering. How Bad? Let's Look at the Numbers

Photo by Edgar Castrejon on Unsplash

When the pandemic began I knew from the start it was going to be bad for area restaurants. My son is in the restaurant trade and he said this spring that 1/3 of our local restaurants would be out of business when this was over. 

I don't know where that guesstimate came from, but it was clear that government mandated shutdowns and inequitable "relief" packages from on high were going to leave a lot of business owners hurting. There was no question that damage was being done. Quantifying it was something I was unable to wrap my head around, until this announcement from the National Restaurant Association (NRA) was released 10 days ago.

The headline is stark: Restaurant Industry In Free Fall; 10,000 Close In Three Months.

The following numbers come from an open letter to Congress from the NRA. The source of this data is a survey conducted the latter half of November.

--Eighty-seven percent of fullservice restaurants (independent, chain, and franchise) report an average 36% drop in sales revenue.  (EdNote: Profit margins in this industry average 5-6%_

--Eighty-three percent predicted things would be worse for the next three month.

--As of today 110,000 restaurants are closed permanently or long term due to shut downs.

--On average these restaurants had been in business for 16 years, and 16% had been open for at least 30 years.

Many of the difficulties have been complicated by the hasty manner in which legislation was cobbled together for the initial bailouts and CARES Act. You can read the NRA's letter to Congress here to see their recommendations for a more equitable solution for our nation's restaurant owners. 

LETTER TO CONGRESS HERE
https://restaurant.org/downloads/pdfs/advocacy/nat-l-restaurant-assoc-ltr-to-congress-12-7-2020.pdf