Philadelphia just relaxed its dining requirements again, so that restaurants can seat up to 50% capacity indoors. This depends on the restaurant being able to do a few things, including ensuring that no person at any table is closer than 6’ from anyone seated at any other table, and improving ventilation. In my former life as a food writer, I’ve been to restaurants on Passyunk that could seat 20 people, max… so who knows how they’ll fare. And what does “improved” mean in terms of ventilation, anyway?
But Philadelphia is just one of many cities nationwide that are starting to relax the dining restrictions put in place in response to COVID. Partially because hospitalizations are down. Partially because we have a better understanding of how the virus transmits and can plan around it. Partially because there has been a lot of screaming from the small business lobby. And, partially because it’s going to be getting colder soon and outdoor dining only works for so long. It’s up to you to figure out which ones are the primary drivers.
But how are consumers responding? By ordering from their car’s window.
As sales figures come in from national chains, drive-thru looks to be the major… uh… driver for restaurant revenue. Sit-down, full-service restaurants saw revenues decline nearly 50%(!) year-over-year in the second quarter. In contrast, fast-food/fast-casual chains offering drive-thru or curbside pickup saw revenues drop only 17%. In the third quarter, McDonald’s saw revenues rise 4.6% after dropping 8.7% in the second. Domino’s saw its sales figures go up 17.5% after already climbing 16% in the second quarter. On the sit-down, full-service side, where there are no drive-thrus, recent news reports say Ruby Tuesday has joined chains like Chuck E. Cheese and California Pizza Kitchen in filing for bankruptcy in 2020.
In a year of massive restaurant closures—Yelp reports more than 16,000 restaurant closures this year—it’s interesting to see what the survivors are doing. In this case, that looks to be adding a window.