Perhaps there’s some DoorDash effect happening across the country - but from the latest data from OpenTable it’s clear that lockdown cities have devastated their restaurant scenes. (h/t to James Altucher) Compare the changes from 2020 and 2021 for the same day.
I live in San Francisco and am one of the very few who did not get vaccinated (largely due to my pregnancy: the ardent insistence that pregnant women get an experimental drug despite being advised not to consume lunch meat is what made me suspicious of the whole vaccine agenda).
Anyway, because of this I have hardly been out to eat in the past few years. I just can't be bothered risking a restaurant asking me for vaccine proof, so I only go to places I know I won't be asked. This has had many knock-on effects. Not only have my husband and I (he was forced to be vaccinated for his job) both not been out to eat with anywhere near the same regularity as pre-2020; whenever we have friends in town or want to see our friends, we do not go out to a restaurant because I'm unvaccinated. So far I think SF restaurants have missed out on at least a dozen 4-top+ tables because a group of my friends didn't eat at a restaurant, and dozens more lost 2-top tables that would have been my husband and I.
Predictable but still so unnecessary. I would guess, by the way, that the abandonment of actually prosecuting people for street crime is also a major factor in these statistics. Nobody wants to risk their lives just to go out for a meal.
As a recent Minneapolis resident (we fled this last year) I can attest that we used to have one of the most amazing restaurant scenes in the country. So many great ethnic and owner-operator small restaurants, all wiped out and neighborhoods that once had numerous thriving options are shells of their former selves, and only the national chains survive. And of course those once safe walkable neighborhoods are seeing crime and graffiti now instead.
I don't get out much anyway due to my financial and other personal situation. But I will not support a restaurant that barred unvaxxed people. At one point I counted I think it was 8, just within walking distance of my house. I will, however, order delivery from a restaurant that did not require injections or masks. I don't have a car and it's too far/difficult to reach by public transit.
As as proud San Diegan, I'm happy to see San Diego not following the same self-destructive patterns as SF and LA (and even *gasp* Beverly Hills).
Curious though about the differences between Montreal and Vancouver (down) while Toronto, Edmonton, and Calgary up. Doesn't Führer Trudeau have the entire nation still in lockdown? I didn't think the provinces has much autonomy on the issue.
It's not just the lockdowns but limitations on occupancy, extensive cleaning, masking, vx requirements, other control-freakery (like how many people per table) that ruined in-person dining. Once people had bad experience, they're not likely to come back even if the requirements are lifted.
Oh those children in Silicon Valley-- they don't like it when they cant bully . Pathetic. Now they know why many of them were shunned in high school. Zuckerberg makes me physically ill.
There's some percentage of the population in these cities with big declines that is simply not going to eat in restaurants again, until the authorities explicitly tell them they should.
Then you have the restaurants that've closed, or are short-staffed.
Was Atlanta really a lockdown city though? Certainly Georgia was the first big state to re-open way back in Spring, 2020. Maybe it's just that nobody is commuting into the city anymore so why go out to eat there? Stay out in the 'burbs.
Restaurants in Lockdown Cities STILL Suffering
I live in San Francisco and am one of the very few who did not get vaccinated (largely due to my pregnancy: the ardent insistence that pregnant women get an experimental drug despite being advised not to consume lunch meat is what made me suspicious of the whole vaccine agenda).
Anyway, because of this I have hardly been out to eat in the past few years. I just can't be bothered risking a restaurant asking me for vaccine proof, so I only go to places I know I won't be asked. This has had many knock-on effects. Not only have my husband and I (he was forced to be vaccinated for his job) both not been out to eat with anywhere near the same regularity as pre-2020; whenever we have friends in town or want to see our friends, we do not go out to a restaurant because I'm unvaccinated. So far I think SF restaurants have missed out on at least a dozen 4-top+ tables because a group of my friends didn't eat at a restaurant, and dozens more lost 2-top tables that would have been my husband and I.
Predictable but still so unnecessary. I would guess, by the way, that the abandonment of actually prosecuting people for street crime is also a major factor in these statistics. Nobody wants to risk their lives just to go out for a meal.
And none of this had to happen. So many people’s lives (the owners’, the employees’) ruined.
As a recent Minneapolis resident (we fled this last year) I can attest that we used to have one of the most amazing restaurant scenes in the country. So many great ethnic and owner-operator small restaurants, all wiped out and neighborhoods that once had numerous thriving options are shells of their former selves, and only the national chains survive. And of course those once safe walkable neighborhoods are seeing crime and graffiti now instead.
Minneapolis! We’re #1!
how much of this awful decline now is due to economic decline?
I don't get out much anyway due to my financial and other personal situation. But I will not support a restaurant that barred unvaxxed people. At one point I counted I think it was 8, just within walking distance of my house. I will, however, order delivery from a restaurant that did not require injections or masks. I don't have a car and it's too far/difficult to reach by public transit.
As as proud San Diegan, I'm happy to see San Diego not following the same self-destructive patterns as SF and LA (and even *gasp* Beverly Hills).
Curious though about the differences between Montreal and Vancouver (down) while Toronto, Edmonton, and Calgary up. Doesn't Führer Trudeau have the entire nation still in lockdown? I didn't think the provinces has much autonomy on the issue.
It's not just the lockdowns but limitations on occupancy, extensive cleaning, masking, vx requirements, other control-freakery (like how many people per table) that ruined in-person dining. Once people had bad experience, they're not likely to come back even if the requirements are lifted.
Not one day should any of these places closed. It would have made zero difference.
Oh those children in Silicon Valley-- they don't like it when they cant bully . Pathetic. Now they know why many of them were shunned in high school. Zuckerberg makes me physically ill.
I don't patronize businesses that kow-towed to Big Brother medical apartheid.
There's some percentage of the population in these cities with big declines that is simply not going to eat in restaurants again, until the authorities explicitly tell them they should.
Then you have the restaurants that've closed, or are short-staffed.
Was Atlanta really a lockdown city though? Certainly Georgia was the first big state to re-open way back in Spring, 2020. Maybe it's just that nobody is commuting into the city anymore so why go out to eat there? Stay out in the 'burbs.