Uncategorized

Texas Cases Climbing

One of the largest states to reopen – Texas – continues to see an increase in the number of new cases per day.

In fact you can see that out side of April 9, the last 4 days have represented the highest new cases per day.

The questions are a. will this trend continue? and b. Do political leaders care? If it does and they do, this will have serious repercussions for our economic recovery.

More generally, it seems that the US has many people that are social distanced out. Even in the hardest hit areas – NJ and NY – people are going out as soon as they can.

By Christopher Schwarz, ago

Recovery Update

One interesting question is how many customers restaurants can handle once they open. Or of course, how much demand there is. Opentable added some new data on utilization.

Seats used in Reopen Restaurants

This shows the percentage of foot traffic for those restaurants that are reopen. You can see for the US the average is just under 50%. South Carolina is the most recovered state and Naples is the most recovered city.

The bottom line is that once things can reopen that the industry will not be able to fully recover. Of course many restaurants are not reopen. Below is a graph of the year-over-year change in restaurant visitors.

Restaurant and TSA Traffic Information

As you can see, the US restaurant traffic is still down 95% year over year. I’ve included the best state – South Carolina at -75% – and the best city – Naples Florida at -52%.

The bottom line is we will have a recovery. However, it will be bound by perhaps 50% due to social distancing. More importantly, no restaurant is profitable at these levels.

By Christopher Schwarz, ago