One-Third of U.S. Restaurants Face Permanent Closure This Year
As many as 231,000 of the nation’s roughly 660,000 eateries will likely shut down this year, according to an estimate from restaurant consultancy Aaron Allen & Associates provided to Bloomberg News. This will bring the industry’s steady growth to a halt and mark the first time in two decades that U.S. restaurant counts don’t climb. Restaurants have already shed millions of jobs this year, economic data show.
In addition, Aaron Allen & Associates calculates that more than 8,000 restaurants in the U.S. have already been directly affected by an employee with coronavirus.
Data show that infection rates have spiked in the states that were first to reopen sit-in dining, such as Georgia, Texas and Florida. “We’re talking a slow journey back for restaurants to be where they were before the pandemic, and that will take several years to work out,” said University of Michigan economist Richard Curtin, who has studied consumer behavior for decades.
Covid-19 cases rose in tandem with customers entering restaurants, according to data provided to Bloomberg by Zenreach, which uses wireless signals from cell phones to monitor traffic. But after reports of rising cases emerged, walk-in traffic turned down, the data show. That doesn’t necessarily mean going to restaurants is sparking more coronavirus spread, but it does show how comfortable customers in those markets feel about leaving the house in general.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/one-third-of-us-restaurants-face-permanent-closure-this-year/ar-BB17pV9O
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