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.
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.
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.
