The question is can they survive a wage increase? They famously cut salaries by 20% at the beginning of the pandemic, and I believe last I saw reported they had a 25% decrease in same store sales. Probably a bit of chicken or egg - sales may still be down simply because they can't find servers to fill all the tables. But if sales are down can they afford to raise wages? Gaining more revenue at the expense of profit might be sustainable short term in order to get people on board. But then they'd have to substantially raise prices at some point.

No point to that I guess, just an observation. But as a former business major, this would have been a fun case study to analyze in my advanced classes. Supply and demand, declining sales, wages and wage laws, government regulation and unemployment subsidies...it has a bit of everything.

Theyre losing revenue right now. Other restaurants are packed to 100% capacity. I did notice that Shoneys directly across the street closed for the pandemic last year and has not reopened. We ate at Panera. It wasn’t all that busy but the location is somewhat hidden.

My local Red Robin is open with no capacity limits. We were there on Monday to use my birthday burger.

panera is pretty great of a service model. Shame it’s JHB only because I would love to own that stock.

I wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemies to have to endure eating whatever I've cooked. I just don't have the talent, the wherewithal or desire to cook, which probably stems from those early years after college where I, probably not unlike most recent grads, had to work like a dog with 15 hour days where any amount of free time allocated to cooking and dishes would have been better spent getting better in my profession. Though I have more time now, that frame of mind still holds; and, while my wife is (I think) pretty adept at preparing meals, her cooking prowess isn't the reason I married her. However, I very much enjoy other people's cooking (as JBord observed, I likewise enjoy good food wherever I may find it) and always look forward to invitations for home cooked meals; and, seeing some of your prepared meals on the dining thread, would love to dine at any of your houses/apts/flats.

When there's a once in a century pandemic and unprecedented Gov't coerced halt to enterprise in some sectors, there's bound to some potential paradigm shifts that may occur. In my view, there isn't going to be a return to the old normal, but some kind of "new" normal. Perhaps, there will be a large enough portion of people who, like gaobest, will realize and have decided eating at home is preferable not just during the pandemic but a more permanent reality. I know that in our business, the pandemic unearthed and exposed those areas with costs/expenses we can purge with very little or zero reduction on our top line and sharp increase on the bottom one. While it's too early to know if these changes as permanent, we're going to eliminate them with very little hesitation if they become the "new normal." So, as we all reexamine our budgets, perhaps the sort of dining popularity will never return, ever. We'll see.

And, you're right, either way it's going to be a fascinating case study in business schools around the world as they look back to how we've handled this pandemic where they'll have the benefit of hindsight, whereas we more or less have to fly somewhat blind.

For a while, I thought Panera's model would be the future wave of fast casual dining, and that it might beat out the Chili's and Applebee's of the world to become the preferred model. IMO, the food has gone way downhill in the last few years -- at least at the couple stores I've been to in the last 2 years. It also seems like the portions are smaller. Maybe it's just that my tastes have changed, but the only thing I'll really have there any more is the soup, and that's only because there aren't a lot of places doing 3-4 different soups on a daily basis.

But I agree with you on the service front. For a quick lunch, I'd much rather order and pick up at the counter. Saves me time and I don't have to tip a server. Maybe that's the way "automation" goes. Order at your table from a screen and then either pick up at the counter or a robot delivers your food. It could breed a number of different methods, and make human servers obsolete, other than at those restaurants where you expect more of a personalized experience. We may put a whole generation of actors and college students on the unemployment line!

Are you still in PCB? Without the foreign college kids on short term work visas, it's going to be hard to staff for seasonal peaks because so many locals need year round hours and not just a bunch of shifts during the spring and summer tourist surge.

I remember seeing a wage sheet from one of the big local PCB employers looking for foreign help for summer 2019 posted on Facebook and even then so many locals would have been nope, can do a lot better working at Publix or Hobby Lobby. Or getting on with one of those cleaning companies where you can make more doing Saturday-only condo and beach house cleaning on changeover day than you could putting in 40 hours a week at the Econolodge.

Do the foreign college students stay there for the summer rather than return home? It would seem to me that it would be a problem every summer simply because all the college students leave. But I'm not familiar with a tourist economy like this, so I'm asking to learn. I understand the reliance on foreign worker visas in Florida, I just hadn't thought there was an angle related to students.

For the time-pressed working couples (with or without families), the rebirth of the pressure cooker in the form of the Instant Pot and likes was a god send Quick meals that could be made or prepared ahead, even frozen for a week of home-made dining.

As far as cooking skills or lack thereof, I wonder if it has to do with innate thrift, upbringing, culture (related to the previous, upbringing) or some other factor. There are many in recent generations who seem to have no or next to no cooking skills. The restaurant and prepped food industry would love more of these.

That style of restaurant service was developing in my vicinity way before. One very close to me was named among the best new restaurants nationally by the country's leading airline's inflight magazine a couple of years ago. I went there and was very surprised that it was counter service.

For th at part of Florida, peak tourist season is the summer and they come in May and leave around Labor Day. There are legit labor broker agencies that recruit the Brazilians and the Romanians and suck for there or national park gift shops or Cape Cod or such

I haven’t heard a single foreign accent in a week. We shopped Pier Park today, ate there yesterday, drank there several times. Went into Alvins Island and RonJon. Nope. No Eastern European kids.

Which is just weird by FL Panhandle standards. I can remember being on a mid-May ATL-VPS flight that was mostly that kind of college kids and one of the locals, who ran a resource group for the student workers out of a local church, spent the entire flight talking to them about US Labor law, Florida rental laws, and how if their employer or landlord was stepping over one of those lines, there were people at the church who could help them free of cost.

Americans Are Leaving Unemployment Rolls More Quickly in States Cutting Off Benefits - WSJ

and,

finally,

Probably behind a paywall, but I'm not sure since I have a subscription. While the situation is a little more nuanced with fears associated with the virus, the above is all pretty common sense stuff--necessity makes even the timid brave.

Not exactly a sit down restaurant (and I don't remember if I've ever eaten in one) but the Canadian Pizza Huts are all converting to delivery and take out, with permanent closure of the "dining room". Apparently the trend to close dining rooms started quite a few years pe-COVID but now it's a national shift.