by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery
It has never been easy to make cash in the places to eat industry. A highly fragmented sector governed through the 70, consistent with the percentage of independent homeowners and inconsistent homeowners, the average annual source of income from a place to eat is around $1 million and generates a consistent profit with a single 4-5 consistent with the penny. An economically viable business style for small independents is hard to achieve.
So when a crisis of the scale of the COVID-19 global pandemic forces restaurants to close and their incomes drop to 0 overnight, things are disastrous. Unlike the airline oligopolistic industry, where a few giant corporations can unite seamlessly to seek government support, restaurateurs’ considerations and industry-exclusive realities and considerations remain largely ignored through government systems designed to help small businesses.
Two months after the start of the pandemic, 40% of U.S. restaurants closed and 8 million workers were unemployed, three times losing tasks in any other industry. While some restaurants began reopening in May and June, the maximum presented only takeaway, deliveries or outdoor food due to local restrictions. The number of diners in June remained below 65% year-on-year, and the National Restaurant Association projected a $240 billion deficit for the year.
Second-order effects of restaurant closures ripple through the American economy, bringing economic pain to farmers, fishermen, foragers, ranchers, manufacturers, and other producers who supply the industry. Equally hit are supply chain partners who move goods across the country.
As 2020 approached, the eating place industry thrived. In a few months, we now see an industry on its heels, massively disturbed by an unprecedented external force that it is almost unstoppassed.
The severity of this disruption will continue to last and will be even more confusing because of the mandate of many local governments to restrict catering capacity from 25 to 50 percent, even after the reopening of restaurants. He’s still open about how nervous the American public will be to return to one of his favorite pastimes.
As a result, the food service industry emerging from the global pandemic is likely to be fundamentally different from the one that existed in early March. How will the COVID-19 crisis replace the industry landscape and what do restaurants want to do to survive? And what do consumers deserve to expect, desperate to go back to their favorite but distrustful restaurants if it is to do so?
In particular, we are involved in the long-term restoration. Together, we share 35 years of experience in the food service and food industry, such as waiters and bartenders, as senior food service team managers and executives and the industry-leading industry agreement, as well as the food and beverage brands that get them. We have invested in the industry and served as board members and industry coalition leaders, and are now preparing, as educators, long-term founders and place managers to function in this exclusive industry. We’ve spent the last few years intensely reading the food-eating industry to create and teach an MBA-level course at Harvard Business School, titled Challenges and Opportunities in the Restaurant Industry.
Taking advantage of the merits of this work, we practically brought together a diverse organization of restaurateurs, chefs, investors and industry leaders in April to participate in a roundtable on the COVID-19 crisis and what it means for the industry in the long term.
What we heard was that the food position industry was experiencing great economic hardship and that ill-conceived government bailouts were not helping to consolidate it. However, we also hear that restaurateurs remain firmly committed to their purpose of raising and feeding people, offering a position of relief and networking in a new world.
Our panel conversations and cash studios tell our long-term view of the industry and recommendation to restaurateurs, staff, investors and consumers below.
Restaurants are universally labor-intensive: through any measure of productivity, they are among the least productive industries. Labor is needed both to produce food in the kitchen and to serve consumers in the dining room. On average, restaurants spend 30% of their source of income at work. By focusing on fair wages and legislated pay rises, restaurants can beat this average seamlessly.
In addition, restaurants spend more or less the same on the cost of goods sold (COGS). Independent restaurants shop without the ability to cover or block prices and are therefore at the mercy of fluctuations in source prices.
A third loading challenge for restaurants is occupancy. Locations are contracted infrequently on the basis of a triple net constant engagement, with an additional percentage of recruitment above a specific revenue source threshold. Normally, the industry does not seek to spend more than 10% of its income on occupancy positions, however, by entering into leases, restaurateurs would possibly be positive about their projected source of income and would therefore settle for a steady rental rate that ends up exceeding this percentage of genuine source of income. Other expenses (insurance, credit card processing, marketing, utilities, maintenance) are increasing.
Assuming that the working capital is good enough at the time of opening, the money from a restaurant’s daily sales is used to pay for pre-purchased materials as well as payroll, rent and other expenses. As a result, restaurants run on modest reserves of money. If income is interrupted, debts payable, payroll and rent remain to be paid. When JPMorgan Chase sampled approximately 600,000 companies in 12 representative industries, restaurants had the lowest money reserve.
Different segments of restaurants have experienced the crisis differently. Those who were in the past enthusiasts of the driving service and takeaway service resisted the typhoon well, while others, who depended on catering, suffered a general loss of income.
Paul Brown, CEO of Inspire Brands, owner of Buffalo Wild Wings, Arby’s, Jimmy John’s and Sonic Drive-In, explained that with 11,000 restaurants in its portfolio, Inspire is impacting all brands, basically because of its business models.
“At Sonic, we work more or less normally, given its drive-in and drive-through concept,” Brown said. “We closed The dining rooms at Arby’s and followed a driving-only service format. We’re a little depressed, but not so bad, because we can run this style quite successfully with undeniable service behind the wheel.”
At the other end of the spectrum of logos, continued, is Buffalo Wild Wings, which historically consists of 75% of restaurants. “Some of our Jimmy John restaurants also rely heavily on lunches and universities. They’re not down. It will take time to retrofit the operating models to succeed in this new environment.”
At the beginning of the crisis, peak places to eat had only two or three weeks of operational reserves and those reserves were temporarily depleted. In the absence of an end date for mandatory shutdowns, owners temporarily fired or fired a maximum of allArray now small computers. Thomas Keller, whose organization of places to eat includes French Laundry in Napa Valley and Per Se in Manhattan, hired another 1,200 people in his thirteen places to eat, but until mid-March they were reduced to 18 workers everywhere to eat.
The panellists shared the pain they experienced as staff members, many of whom were long-term workers who felt like a circle of relatives, were on leave, or fired. Some owners have operated their kitchens only to supply food to their staff, for fear that they will not be able to feed themselves. The day he had to fire thousands of people “was one of the hardest days of my life,” said RJ Melman, president of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises and author and developer of more than thirteen concepts of places to eat. “I know a lot of those other people, it’s a family circle business.”
In 2012, the World Economic Forum published an assessment of the credible threats facing the industry. Calculated the threat of a pandemic at 11%, either under a global energy shortage (19%) and a labor shortage (17%).
Restaurant managers were asked, given this probability of risk, were restaurants more prepared for the global pandemic?
“Do you think anyone might have been ready for this?” Melman replied. “Many of our dining rooms are not sold. I don’t think many corporations in general have a 0 sales plan. It’s not that we’re not ready not to have business because of an emergency. We have commercial loss insurance for things like fires, however, no one could have foreseen the closure of an entire industry for months”.
Paul Brown agreed. “It’s one thing to communicate about a pandemic. And another very different is to communicate about the government’s reaction to the pandemic, which is what harms everyone in this industry. It’s less of a pandemic than a uniform global closure of the economy, which I don’t think anyone would have predicted. This is the last downward scenario: what happens if the total economy stops for several months? »
While governments imposed closures, many restaurateurs turned to their insurers for relief from operating losses. Some were dismayed that they had purchased policies with virus exclusions, leaving them exposed to any loss due to the pandemic. Others, adding Keller’s organization, had a virus policy, but their claims were still rejected through their insurers. With several recognized chefs and restaurateurs, Keller leads an organization called BIG (Business Disruption Group) to lead a legal, political, and public relations effort to request payment of policies without virus exclusion and federal payment under exclusion policies.
Our panelists expressed frustration with government support programs, such as the U.S. CARES Act. And its PayCheck Protection Program (PPP), which was approved last March. Although it is designed to help small businesses with grant loans to inspire the retention of workers on the payroll, the program has unfortunately failed to meet the desires of the place-to-eat industry.
For example, eligibility for the total cancellation of the loan is based on the use of loan resources over an eight-week period consistent with the period ending June 30, with salary grades and the number of workers held at the same point as the comparable consistent with the 2019 period. In addition, 75 percent of the loan’s resources would be used for payroll, which is inconsistent with a popular payroll expense industry totaling approximately 30 percent of revenue. By mid-May, open restaurants had reduced their staff levels for takeaway and delivery only, and customers to return to full employment until June 30 were bleak given the restrictions imposed by capacity limits.
The debt service on loans not forgiven will further constrain restaurants’ cash flow, leading some restaurants, particularly the small, independent operations most in dire economic straits and risking permanent closure, to forego use of the loans, deeming them too risky to take.
“We’re closed and we’ll be for the foreseeable future, I’m not sure how long,” said Amanda Cohen, a chef named James Beard and owner of Dirt Candy in New York. “I don’t know what to do with the PPP loan for which I was approved; I’m not sure he’ll accept it. I spend my time wondering if I can turn it into paintings for myself. I play with numbers, looking to believe in tactics to succeed in my full-time pre-COVID equivalent None of this turns out to be a painting.
After receiving a PPP loan, “it was no relief to get money. It’s a very bad situation,” said Annie Shi, King’s co-founder in New York. “We’re going to stay, but we’re not going to spend a dollar of singles until the final regulations are established so we can see if it’s going to help us or hurt us.”
Keller expressed frustration that some of the largest restaurant groups were taking government money while most needy restaurateurs were unable to benefit. “The smallest of restaurants, those under $2 million in revenue, are the ones that most need the help,” he said. “These are your local coffee shops, donut shops, Chinese takeouts; they are the fabric of our communities. These restaurants are not going to be able to come back unless we help them during the crisis; we must take care of them.”
Reviewing the $30 million granted to publicly traded corporations such as Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris, Keller noted that if only $100,000 had been donated to smaller restaurants, it is possible that three hundred homeowners had been supported. “We want to oppose this trend from the largest who receives the cash first to the smallest one who is first in line.” (Subsequently, following public criticism, Shake Shack and Chris de Ruth repaid their PPP loan revenue.)
In early June, Congress passed and the president signed the Payment Check Protection Flexibility Act 2020, which extended the policy era from 8 weeks to 24 weeks and reduced the payroll usage requirement from 75% to 60%, among other provisions. It remains to be seen whether those app adjustments will inspire more restaurateurs to settle for loans.
Many restaurants have broken the crisis. They switched to takeaway and delivery and took a step forward in their ability to take care of the sidewalk pickup and move to the entrance. Some have developed family-style food takeaway products ready through the chef, adding multi-meal packages ready in whole or in part with the best heating or cooking instructions.
But others found the pivot difficult. “We chose not to deliver or pick up,” Shi said. “In the first phase after closing, we engage with our staff and their well-being. We’ve established a GoFundMe to increase your budget and make sure you get support. In the moment phase, we were busy applying for loans. Then we thought they were home deliveries and takeaways, but not all of the dishes in our place to eat are designed to be delivered easily. And delivery is rarely as successful because apps like Uber Eats absorb 30% of their profits on fares.
Cohen faces similar options. “We didn’t make a delivery in advance, so I didn’t think we were going to do a smart task in the middle of a pandemic,” he said. ‘We weren’t prepared for it, we don’t have the boxes for that, it would have taken us too long to be operational. Many of my friends do it and fail to reach the balance point. My biggest fear is that I can’t secure the protection of my staff. I need my staff to be safe. If my place to eat survives, but some of my staff gets sick, it’s not worth it.”
Keith Pascal, former Panera Bread concept director and founding spouse of restaurant-focused investment firm Act III Holdings, said that while restaurant sales in its investment portfolio fell first by more than 80%, he has noticed increases each and every week. More and more venues are implementing artistic tactics for sales, such as virtual access, new menu offers, and contactless pickup options on the street.
Investors help consolidate distribution networks by injecting money into suppliers to retain products. Franchisees are offered more beneficial payment terms. Every player in the fragile ecosystem faces a risk and the industry is mobilizing to consolidate each and every component of the system.
“Action is going to be a big challenge for us,” Keller said. “How can we consolidate our suppliers, many of whom are also independent contractors, who have been affected by our closure? Can we use PPP cash to pay our suppliers to replenish our restaurants? Like us, his profits have been reduced to zero. make sure they survive? »
In the midst of their own pain, restorers to others in their communities lend their physical and personal spaces. Keller’s advertising eater in Yountville, California delivers food to confined seniors at their homes in the area, supplies reasonable three-course food for the unemployed, and uses its services to create a small food bank.
In collaboration with the nonprofit Rethink Food, New York’s Eleven Madison Park, a three-Michelin-star eating spot ranked as the world’s most productive place to eat in 2017, has become the kitchen of a commissioner preparing 3,000 food a day for hungry network members. When public schools closed in Orange County, California, Slapfish, a fast and informal seafood chain, introduced a deferral, food-free policy for children. Other restaurateurs organize consortiums from their suppliers to organize craft food subscription boxes sold online.
Barriers to rebuilding eating place staff begin with ensuring the protection of on-site workers, adding a desire to take into account the age and pre-existing situations of current and potential workers. Restorers will also need to provide flexibility in plans due to child care wishes and the option of summer systems and schools being closed until September or later. Some workers may be reluctant to return because the combination of state unemployment benefits and the $600-a-week federal supplement, which will be held until at least August 1, increases their source of income beyond their repayment before COVID. On the other hand, given the great unemployment throughout the country, if presented with a return to work, many can respond positively, involved in the festival for their work of others looking for work.
Many other staff members at the places to eat, especially the expert household staff, earned more from the paintings than when they got the unemployment benefits and sought to return quickly, but feared that their incomes would decline due to places to eat with inadequate capacity. The industry’s low margins nearly increase restaurant staff salaries without raising menu prices, which consumers most affected by the crisis are likely to decline.
More tip jars and an obviously visual area on checks for voluntary thank-you contributions will likely be a component of the restaurants’ initial reaction and, as the economy recovers, menu costs are likely to increase. Addressing workers’ considerations will be imperative: a successful restaurateur knows that treating his workers well is the most productive way to ensure that customer protection considerations are at the forefront in all facets of service, while maintaining the highest hospitality criteria.
Restaurant implementation of highly variable federal, state, local, and industry operating guidelines may provide confidence, especially to more vulnerable employees. In kitchens, many tightly designed for workers to multitask across different cooking and prep stations, close proximity of workers is of concern. In dining and restroom areas, in addition to wearing masks or face shields, vigilance will be required about cleaning and sanitizing. Management effectiveness at controlling numbers and flow of customers and enforcement of local requirements, such as requiring customers to wear masks when not eating, will impact the perception and reality of employee safety.
When planning to reopen food outlets, operators identify new positions, adding “concierges” to manage the front and assigned workers to disinfect tables, chairs, and bathrooms.
Anecdotally, early reports from the opening states show that other people rush and refuse to wear masks. Returning workers discovered that career situations were difficult and were added dressed in masks. In Cape Cod, Massachusetts, an ice cream parlor closed a day after teenagers were verbally harassed by consumers frustrated by long queues and waiting times due to new security protocols.
During the crisis, places to eat and regulators discussed game plans for the reopening. The main features of these plans come with the reconfiguration of floor plans to allow physical distance while it is found that the six-foot rule cited may not be practical for meals at eating places, using transparent screens or other physical barriers to delimit the separation of the tables, restricting the number of Americans at each table , expanding outdoor seating, education in form and organized protection and staggered shifts for employees, more flexible in low physical fitness policies, common and more rigorous cleaning of all surfaces, contactless interactions between consumers and servers, QR code scanning, -use contactless menus, order and pay for cellular devices, filter servers and glovesArray and many others.
Guidelines from local municipalities and state governments deplore some restaurateurs. Although important, Paul Brown said: “It would be great if those rules were implemented a little more evenly. It’s a genuine challenge. We have a 32-page document for one of our food chain that includes other parameters for both a local municipality. We want to update it for almost one and two days as things change. It’s almost a dining room like this, and consumers are confused: they don’t know how to behave.”
The adoption of express reopening protocols and rigorous and constant adherence to these protocols will mean the commitment of places to eat with the protection of consumers and employees. While necessary, the protocols probably won’t be enough to allow places to eat to meet the ultimate vital prerequisite for a successful reopening: restoring visitor confidence while maintaining hospitality that is an essential component of the dining place experience.
Rebuilding this, accepting as true and accepting as true, will have to begin with the empathy and respect of the staff of the place to eat, which will shape a new contingent of frontline personnel in the fight opposite COVID-19 as well as culture. carriers and custodians of the experience of the place to eat. Keller notes: “The most important thing we all face is the trust and convenience our consumers will have when they return to our places to eat. That will be our biggest obstacle, no matter what rules the government gives us. Do you really need to move to a place to eat? Until other people feel comfortable, nothing will happen.”
And reopening won’t be easy, especially for independent operators like Cohen. “My biggest purpose right now is to bring other people into restaurants,” he says. “I’m going to run at a loss for many months if I have to stay at 50% of my capacity.”
Until COVID-19 arrived, Americans spent more on outdoor food than on domestic consumption. The restaurants had been the space, in addition to the space and the workplace, where relationships had been formed, incubated and maintained.
What is clear, however, is that for the industry to recover, restaurants must incorporate health and safety measures into a hospitable environment, staffed by well-trained and appropriately incentivized employees whose interactions with customers induce them to return.
Consumer surveys conducted in May through The Washington Post, researchers at the University of Maryland and Morning Consult found that only 26% of Americans think places to eat reopen and only 18% feel comfortable returning to the place to eat. In a customer survey also conducted through Datassential in May, 75% of customers said protection was more vital than visiting their favorite place to eat and 64% said they would definitely avoid going out for dinner. Customers with a higher tolerance to threats attended places to eat in states that began to reopen, but in smaller amounts than those required for places to eat to become profitable again. Takeaway activities continue to grow, but more slowly than expected.
Still, there’s an explanation for why being optimistic, Pascal said. It lymalties consumers into cooking their own meals. “People are resilient in their preference to eating out, and perhaps a little annoyed at what’s in their refrigerators, so eager to take advantage of some of their ready dining opportunities through someone outside at home.”
Paul Brown noted restaurants must consider all visual cues that will signal a safe environment to consumers. “A lot of these are already in place in restaurants because cleanliness has always been at the very top of the list of priorities of any well-run restaurant. But a lot of the work that we do to keep restaurants clean has not been as visual or evident to consumers and the consumers of the future may need to see more of it. It puts a lot of emphasis on the quality of the space itself. An old building looks dirty, no matter how clean it is. Design is going to be a big focus going forward; how can we use our tables or restroom design in ways that make them visibly clean?”
Changes in customer desires and behavior will also affect the use of the eating position. Restaurants located in or near workplace complexes have suffered a decline in workplace occupancy rates and will continue to enjoy the negative effects. Consumers who move to the workplace may have become accustomed to coffee or breakfast at home and will be running more and more at home in the future. Previously, variety-of-eat methods focused on the density of the working and residential population; according to the concept, the relative density of each provided key knowledge for predictive models. For concepts that place more emphasis on labor force density, such as urban areas, such variation projections would now be compromised.
Another critical thing that will have an effect on the industry is the large number of Americans who are unemployed in general and the speed at which they return to employment in all sectors of the economy. As their true source of disposable income is seriously affected, discretionary restaurant purchases can be reduced. In addition, when employed, consumers have less time to prepare food and look for answers away from home; in the event of unemployment, free time makes it more imaginable to cook at home.
Kevin Brown, CEO of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, commented, “People are very comfortable with social estrangement. But we will fight to reach the 50% balance point of its capacity. We know how that’s going to happen. I know that the economy of the place of eating will have to change, adding prices, but in the short term it will be possible ».
Because of their unusual challenges, restaurateurs combine to teach public officials about the unique facets of their industry that hinder a global pandemic and to find answers to industry’s short-term disruptions and ensure their long-term survival. Local efforts organized through the National Restaurant Association, the Independent Restaurant Coalition and others have brought national and local visibility to members of Congress and the White House.
Keller and Paul Brown are members of the White House’s Great American Economic Revival Food and Beverage Group, an organization of 200 representatives from 17 industries who met with White House staff during the crisis to help chart the course of economic recovery. Keller, other restaurateurs and industry representatives met with the president and cupboard members more than once to describe the effect of the pandemic on restaurants, as well as those who are supplied or painted in restaurants. Lobbying efforts in Washington resulted in the near-unanimous passage of amendments to the PPP law through the House and Senate and the passage of the White House.
“Many coalitions have combined,” Cohen said. “What we all realize is that all those little restaurants in combination have strength. We need to harness that strength and come in combination as a group. But it probably wouldn’t help us if we can’t open all of them, if none of us exist. »
Keller added: “Having a unified voice is the most we can do today. We’ll have to unite. We all face the same catastrophe. The only way to solve the disorders we face is unification.”
It is too early to know when and how industry and the economy will emerge from the pandemic. But a primary crisis becomes a turning point where industries emerge more powerful than before. Companies that focus on the fitness of their workers and customers, who supply the food and delight in the gastronomy that consumers need, that manage their capital wisely and observe the suitability of their business, it is the corporations that will notice opportunities in the midst of the carnage that brought this crisis.
“I’m a provocateur, ” said Pascal. “I think it’s a glorious time to think about entering the industry. Although it would possibly come from someone else’s misfortune, and is unhappy, there will be many opportunities. Although there are misfortunes, there will be many new skills. will be a lot of reasonable assets. We’re looking to invest in safe things that are close to bankruptcy. There are wonderful opportunities to keep some corporations alive that deserve to remain so. We are also seeing larger, high-quality organizations that have been harmed by this and I want capital or desire a small monetary mattress to deal with that.
Interestingly, during the Great Recession of 2007-09, the number of restaurants and bars did not decrease. For what? Many new unemployed people, who miss other employment opportunities, have opened their own catering businesses. It remains to be noted whether the nature of this crisis has similar effects.
Intensive focus on restaurant and food handling safety will no doubt yield product innovation in packaging, no-touch technology for ordering, paying, restrooms, and even entry and exit from restaurants, and cleaning and sanitizing protocols and products. Air circulation within restaurants will also be examined. This process has already begun. For example, MASS Design Group, a non-profit collective founded a decade ago in response to epidemic outbreaks, is currently working with restaurateurs Jody Adams, Jaime Bissonnette, and Ken Oringer on case studies developing spatial strategies for their Boston and Cambridge restaurants, taking into account, among other things, entry and exit points, delivery and takeout, traffic patterns, physical barriers, and air flow. MASS has made its case studies and guidelines available as open source documents.
The fundamental style of recovery operations will also be reviewed. How will the proposal for long-term prices for consumers be reconciled with the monetary viability of restaurants and the well-being of employees? Will consumers be willing to pay more for fair wages and the overall viability of restaurants?
“We believe costs have to be a lot of time if you need to pay your staff a decent salary,” Shi said. “I think there’s been a disconnect between what other people are willing to pay for a dinner-on-site lunch and what it costs to prepare and serve.”
At the same time, restaurants can increasingly turn to technology, adding the use of robotics to the efficiency of paints.
Restaurants will have to face all facets of constant costs. Will restaurants be able to distribute or retransmit rentals to make hiring a variable load similar to sales performance?
Will the customer’s use of takeaways, street collection and pandemic delivery be delayed to a post-pandemic period? If this is the case, restaurateurs have many opportunities to reduce access to the place to eat in favor of a ghost or virtual kitchen, greatly reducing capital investment and occupancy costs.
During the crisis, many localities adjusted regulations to allow restaurants to bring alcoholic beverages with takeaway, takeaway and home orders. Consumers have appreciated this convenience that, if maintained, provides a progressive source of income for restaurants.
The third-party delivery charge commissions the scourge of restaurants to COVID. Some communities besides New York have tried to limit those rates. The feasibility of the third-party delivery economy for restaurants and delivery providers after COVID will continue to be addressed, with opportunities for participants with lower charges.
Prior to COVID-19, the number of restaurants consistent with the capita had reached a record; The industry would probably have noticed the removal of sites even in the absence of a crisis. “I think you’re going to see a lot of restaurants close and don’t come back, especially the chains that don’t have a strong differentiation in the market,” Pascal said. “Over the past decade, there have been many roles and many companies that probably shouldn’t have survived.” Eliminating overcapacity can only profitability and prospective expansion of those who stay and create a blank area for the emergence of new recovery concepts.
During the crisis, many but closed restaurants connected their home chains to their consumers to help mitigate the effect of the crisis on their vendors, distributors, farmers and other suppliers. If this continues after the pandemic, it can help generate stronger demand and costs for restaurants and the supply chain.
The food-eating industry has long been characterized by creativity and resistance, intrinsic to the DNA of restaurateurs. Consumers aspire to return to the place to eat. In a Datassential consumer survey, when asked what activities they wanted to resume, “eating at my favorite place to eat” crowned a list that included visiting movie theaters, buying grocery stores, meeting friends and a circle of family members in places to eat and occasionally participate in stadiums or arenas.
“The quarantine has made everyone realize how much they appreciate being with other people,” Shi said. “I think that’s the thing that people miss the most, and I’m really hopeful that when we are allowed to get back together then people will realize how much they prize that social interaction and look forward to dining with their loved ones more than ever before.”
Without restaurants, cities seem to be broken, Cohen said. “Now I realize what restaurants are with the cloth of our villages, walking through the streets and seeing them on board. I don’t see other people having a good time. It’s like the people are devastated. Without restaurants, we lack a basic detail of what makes life in a society not only tolerable but also pleasant.
Kevin Brown commented: “It just makes me think about the price of relationships. Now we’re all disconnected. What the restaurants offer, bringing other people in combination, is an honor to be in this area.
Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg and Jill Avery are professors at Harvard Business School.