Can’t Have COVID and Eat Out Too

As noted many times by the media (and me) COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the US. The question is: Does it matter?

Here’s restaurant traffic for the most impacted states – FL, CA, NC, SC, TX, and AZ. Note TX only cut capacity a day or two ago. Blue is day value and Orange is 7-day average. (Note this is from opentable and only for restaurants that HAVE reopened.)

Restaurant Traffic

Two things you can see. First, is Father’s Day was a great day for restaurants (and maybe a bad thing for the virus spread).

But more importantly, you can see the recovery has paused and perhaps started to reverse.

It doesn’t matter if we officially shutdown again or not. People will modify their behavior with case data getting worse.

The Re-Closing Begins

Today Gov. Newsom announced that bars will close in 7 counties (including LA) in CA and recommends that other counties close them. This follows news that in Texas bars are also closed and restaurants must cut their capacity.

The question becomes what will be the impact on the economy and recovery going foward?