I love the idea of a self-service food-ordering kiosk. Costco Sf has it for the food court although they have a human cashier for those who prefer the non-machine. As long as the business has 2-4 kiosks, it’s not so awful in case one client is struggling.

Dairy Queen in Capitola still has counter service - phew!

It's not a CA mandate. Everyone I've asked says labor shortage.

Michigan basically all the fast food stores have been shut inside since the restaurants were closed down originally. I don't think it's currently still a mandate, but we had a lot of capacity restrictions, and I think most of them just decided it was easier (and cheaper) to not open up inside. I'm not convinced it's a labor shortage issue so much as a cheapness factor (especially when you consider all the extra cleaning they'd need to do with people in the store).

Note, a number of the fast food stores (including mcdonalds) have curb-side, so if the drive through is real long, sometimes you can do that instead and beat the drive through line. Some are better than others (from a store to store, not even chain to chain) at how well they really handle it. Wendy's is particularly bad, and lately most of the ones I've been by have pretty much simply stopped offering curbside and only do drive through. As as result, Wendy's doesn't get any business from me.

Like I said, I don't really believe it's a labor issue, just plain being cheap. (Although I've finally been seeing some signs that they might start opening back up around here).

I've actually read several articles now where industry experts have said the pandemic + the higher wage issue will push the industry toward automation and away from jobs. I don't know exactly what that means, since you still need someone to bring you the food (drones? :)). But I guess it means fewer staff since they aren't taking orders. Anyway, I'm not sure it's being "cheap" vs. the fact that most restaurants aren't high margin businesses. Some have found takeout and curbside bring in higher margins I'd assume.

I've done the ipad ordering in some airport restaurants. I'd still rather have a regular menu and someone to take my order, especially if I have a question.

:tu::tu: Although, so far, I’ve refused to use iPad ordering.

Yeah, I don't know how much the pandemic has played a role as much as higher min. wage in areas. Back in my other home (Portland, OR) a lot of places have gone to having guests order at the counter rather than having servers come to tables. Maui Brewing is setup that way. If it's done right it can be okay but waiting in line for 10+ minutes every time you want something gets old in a hurry (unfortunately, that was the case at Maui Brewing last time I was there).

In some cases, you would wait 10 minutes for the server to come to your table when you wanted to order something. :D

I was at a restaurant recently where we ordered an appetizer, which was delivered quickly, but by someone other than our server, and we waited another half hour to order entrees, simply because our server just disappeared for much of that time. The manager was told of that and measures were taken, but still.

I was watching an interview on the news today with the owner of an ice cream parlor in Pittsburgh. He raised his minimum wage to $15/hr and he stated that it actually helped his business. He received a very large number of applications and was able to hire more competent staff, which reduced training time and resulted in fewer order mistakes and less wastage. He claims that his profit has increased. He, also, has owners of other small businesses calling for advice.

Definitely a fair point but I'd rather spend the 10 minutes sitting at a table with people I came to hang out with rather than standing in line with strangers. In a past life I spent 15+ years in the restaurant biz and know it well. The new minimum wage and scheduling laws have made it nearly impossible to succeed in some areas. This makes labor/staffing even more critical and many managers cut staff which results in the kind of scenario you outline.

I like the idea of tablets, etc. but understand some people might be turned off. The whole concept of servers has always been a bit off IMO. Guests have just never had to think/plan ahead at all. People (like my wife as a great example) will run the server 3X for separate things just because she can't be bothered to think ahead 5 minutes. For some reason when we eat dinner she manages to bring the ketchup AND hot sauce AND extra napkins to the table in one trip :) I always tell her I never want to touch what the server brings on the third trip since it's probably been on the floor (or somewhere worse :))

Nightmare scenario for restaurant owners, I wager. Competitor (direct or indirect) raises offered wages so all the good employees leave. Have to raise wages offered to win some back (or recruit new, good employees), competitors raise wages in response.

I had a text from my son in Eugene this evening. He and his wife were dining out for only the second time in over a year. No server shortage at that particular restaurant. Quick service, adequate attention, meal at the table in 15 minutes after an order was placed. He thinks they were operating at 50% capacity but there was no wait for a table. I wonder if it’s less a factor in college towns where students need to make money all summer to carry them through the school year. Of course I have no idea what wage the restaurant was paying in addition to tips.

Every time I hear stories like this I'm amazed. Even in most of CA, there was only a short period- maybe 3-4 months where you couldn't at least eat outside. Plus there were always a few restaurants and bars who refused to comply. We got out plenty except for that 3-4 month period. Many other states were much more lenient.

Same in IL. IIRC, the first couple months were takeout only. Then at least outdoor dining. Limited indoor opened last summer, and then back to zero in October, at which point many restaurants just stayed open. In fact, some whole towns just resisted. I think people not eating at restaurants has more to do with them choosing not to than restaurants not being open. I know for certain we have some neighbors who haven't been to a restaurant (indoors or out) in 15 months and even after being vaccinated are afraid to go. Everyone has their own risk tolerance level I suppose.

I think it was a matter of them being comfortable. They received their second vaccinations 1-2 months ago. It’s also possible Oregon clamped down a little tighter than elsewhere. Certainly more so than here in Florida.

I ate at a restaurant the other day for probably only the second time over this period myself. For me, the idea of "outside" dining, where they're putting up tents and bubbles and things was just laughable anyways. And quite frankly, it gets cold here. And then it gets hot here. I like inside dining myself most of the time. I can't find the timeline easily, but we've had several periods where indoor dining was flat out banned, and for most of the rest of the time it was pretty severely restricted - and at most 25% of capacity. Heck, it was 50% up until yesterday.

For me though, the real reason I wasn't eating at restaurants really wasn't concerns over getting sick. I've always kinda felt that when you look at the actual numbers of cases in places around here, your odds of exposure even at our highest times were pretty insignificant. But to me, the idea of paying money to go somewhere to eat and put up the theater of nonsense that the various masking rules in restaurants has been just wasn't something that I had any interest in doing. And at times here, it was getting kinda crazy. So I just didn't go. And generally didn't do a lot of takeout from restaurants that I'd normally have eaten at, simply because I don't feel that the food tends to travel well enough for me to get it home and eat it.

As a result for me, I did a lot of eating from home. I've also done more fast good restaurants than I'd prefer. But as someone that did a lot of eating at restaurants, one side benefit to me ended up being that we've been able to spend this time period actually working on cutting down our debt to a much more acceptable level. The cost cuts because of the inability to really go out and do much have been something that while I have no interest in going through this type of situation again, at least in our situation we've been lucky enough to take advantage of to help improve that debt situation. Although it also means that while I'm more likely to go to restaurants a little more now that the situation is easier, I'll probably still be holding off some on that, because we still have a couple months to go to reach our zero debt (besides car and house) goal.

I think the fact that the risk tolerance level is so low for so many is what amazes me the most.

I remember reading here or somewhere else sometime since the "great recession" that it used to be people in the U.S. rarely if ever ate out unless they were on the higher echelons of the economic strata. Then came the chain restaurants that made dining out (relatively more) "affordable" for those on the lower end. The great recession wiped out a lot of these chains when people went back to home cooking to save/cut down debt. One wonders if the same (great wipeout) will happen again. I don't/have ever patronised these places so don't know if they've disappeared or not.

Before the COVID shutdown, my wife and I rarely (5x a year at most) ever ate out (including fast food, not due to not having money, but finding very poor value where we are than what we were used to). We've been tracking our budget and expenditures on everything spent for over half a decade. Food (basics, we pretty much make everything from basics) expenditure is USD 16 per day on which we (2 of us) eat very, very well.

I find both ends of the spectrum kind of amazing actually. But I'm a common sense person who believes that we take risks every day, just by getting out of bed. I don't walk down dark alleys in Chicago. But I'm not wearing rubber gloves and a mask to drive my car either.

I've heard a similar story, but not tied to the Great Recession, which was in 2008. The whole restaurant craze and celebrity chef thing was going strong before that. In any case, you bring up an interesting point. The higher end restaurants should survive, and of course they usually pay much better too. And I suspect fast food will adapt, as we've discussed here. It's those mid-range chains that are worth watching.

The flip side of that is people have more disposable income now, according to several studies. People have figured out what I've lived for over 15 years now - that working from home saves you a LOT of money. And others received government subsidies. My mom, in her 70's and with a monthly retirement income that she's forced to take but can't possibly spend, has twice donated the COVID stimulus checks she's received. So will they spend it in restaurants or realize, as you've found, that we can make a lot of things better at home?

There was plenty of time that restaurants were physically open (legally or not), but sane people chose not to go.

Lots of sane people went. I'd guess most people who went were legally sane. If you chose not to go, that's fine. But there's really no reason to judge others, name-call, or question their mental fitness simply because they made a perfectly reasonable choice that you happen to disagree with.

What you discuss here goes so far beyond just restaurants in our society today - Many think things that are a privilege are a right. Of course, all the credit card companies and banks play right into it with slogans like, "Discover Card..... Because Life Won't Wait". Eating out is just terrible from an economic standpoint, largely due to all the items talked about here (high labor cost, etc.). Like so many other things, the ones abusing the privilege of eating out are the ones that can least afford it.

I'm one of those who missed restaurant dining. Not sure how long it was, but indoor dining was shut down for a very long time here in San Francisco, and I just don't like dining outdoors; the moment an insect flies around me, my appetite is out the window. And, food delivery doesn't do it for me either--a delivered steak isn't the same as one freshly served.

So, the moment Vegas opened up at or around Jan, I flew there weekly just to have my steaks. To my surprise, some whom I had thought I knew very well and have known for 20 years felt I was "insane." While not saying so directly, they intimated that my actions were reckless, selfish and putting "everyone" at risk, just because of my necessity to indulge in great steaks. Not that any of this deterred or mattered to me, but I was surprised by some of their views because I've known some of these people almost 20 years.

By the way, how are the Chicago steakhouses faring? I was very disappointed when David Burke's steakhouse officially closed for good.

I am in complete agreement with you about dining outdoors. It's fine for a summer potluck by the pool, or a quick burger at the drive-in burger joint, but if given a choice, I'll always take indoors. Insects suck too, but the minute the breeze carries my napkin off the table, I'm pissed. As far as carry out goes, fast food or pizza is OK, but we never once had regular restaurant food to go during any part of the lockdown. We never do at any time. **We did eat out many times under tents which were kind of like dining indoors- no wind, and that was tolerable, barely.

I know SF was especially strict. Good for you for going to Vegas instead of just hibernating.

I had a similar experience with a few people that surprised me. Although I'd say most of my friends were pretty rational. It was sometimes scary to see people rely on what I call "personal facts" to make decisions and then expect others to make decisions based on those same "personal facts" rather than true facts and data. I could tell lots of stories about the inconsistencies I observed.

As far as I'm aware, the steak houses have survived pretty well. I just read an article about Gene & Georgetti's and Gibson's last weekend. And I read another (forget the name) is opening soon. I think most of your favorites will still be here when you come!

Maybe it's just living in the cold midwest, but I love dining outdoors when it's nice enough. I'll choose that every time on a nice summer day. But like you, I wouldn't order regular food for takeout, most just doesn't travel well. Fast food, pizza, Chinese, there are a few more - they work because time and money has been invested in making them being "to-go" foods. We did try regular food a couple times when even outdoor dining was closed a year ago. Once was a failure. The other was tolerable but just not as good.

I’m now of the opinion that casual / fast food places are using the pandemic to end/cease indoor dining in order to save money on staffing and cleaning. It’s like how airlines reduced F food service during the pandemic - I believe in this analogy and think that most of us here can empathize. We are lucky that our DQ in Capitola still has counter to-go service to offset the long drive-through queues! We love our blizzards :-)

I used to dine out often pre-pandemic and switched to cooking primarily for the money saving. Even now I still prefer to cook my own meals as much as possible, strictly as a lifestyle change for both money and health. I’ll still enjoy restaurant meals with my family and I’ll only order food that I cannot cook, such as fried chicken and French fries and eggplant dishes (I lack patience for that time needed to dry the eggplant). I believe that most restaurants are serving Sysco level foods that I can just replicate at home because I have the time to learn what I’ve read on Ft for cooking lessons :-)

I think you're probably right. Not all, but certainly some are. Partly they found out they could make better margins during the pandemic, and possibly the fact that people are unwilling to come back to work ("server shortage") has been a catalyst to get the restaurants to either end dine-in services or to invest in automation. Automation at fast food and fast casual places, once in place, is likely to stay. I'm not so sure about dine-in though. I think it's temporary and soon the pandemic won't be a convenient excuse. When the place across the street is offering dining service and you aren't that eventually becomes a differentiator, in a bad way. Honestly, around here I haven't noticed many, if any, places that have kept dining rooms closed because of the pandemic. But I only eat inside a fast food restaurant maybe once a year...usually drive through if I do it.

We’re back at the beach this week, Panama City Beach. We haven’t lived here for the last 18 months, so it’s hard to determine the reasons behind any changes. I haven’t seen any of the better restaurants closed since last summer. There’s always turnover here, marginal venues don’t last long but space refills quickly. When summer is over, any place without a local following probably fails. I have noticed later crowds waiting outside for tables at a nearby restaurant. We were at an old favorite last night. It wasn’t crowded but business was steady. It has expanded since we last visited 12 months ago. It is a bar, restaurant, gift shop and music venue. There is no table service. It gets by with 4 or 5 employees: 2 cooks, food runner, beertender and shop cashier. That’s no different than when we first walked in 8 years ago. It can handle more than a hundred customers comfortably at any time, maybe 150. The model has always been successful and I suppose even more so under past year restrictions. Of the 5 working, 3 were new. 1 was an owner. There are tip jars at the bar and food counter. I wonder if this is increasingly the future of dining out here. We saw similar operations at Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach and St Augustine earlier this year. Presumably other restaurant owners are paying attention.

While I haven't returned to my pre-pandemic restaurant dining frequency, I have noticed that some establishments seem to have closed off sections and greatly reduced the number of servers. Of course, this could have been due to our State's covid restrictions, but let's see if they'll return to, assuming the demand calls for it, full capacity. At this point, I'm unsure if restaurant demand will ever return fully to their pre-lockdown levels. Love DQ too, but none that I know of around me; so, I just always drop by the one in the Excalibur's basement when I'm in Vegas.

Vegas appears to be at full staffing and having very little issues attracting talent/help, at least on the strip hotel/casino/restaurants. Of course, it could be because of this town's deeply ingrained tipping culture where they'll likely earn considerably more than unemployment even the heightened benefits. Because of the pandemic, I suspect everyone has been tipping a little extra to help during these challenging times, and likely even more so in Vegas. Even in CA when the extra unemployment benefits end in Sept (?), I expect we'll see a return to normal service staffing levels, assuming demand hasn't been permanently reduced.

For us, pre-covid we did eat out a lot. Mostly because of the convenience factor. Both of us work, neither of us particularly like to cook, and coming home after working all day and cooking wasn't really something that was really high on our list of things we wanted to do. Kinda like I pay someone to mow my lawn - I could do it myself, but I really don't want to. Being at home, obviously it became a lot more convenient to cook, which in turn helped us with getting some of our expenses under control. I'll be the first to admit that we fell in the category of people that spend more than they really should. Getting a chance to reset that helped, and as I've said, is about the only good thing I feel about this whole situation.

But I'll be honest, I'm getting real sick of eating my own cooking, so once the debt elimination part is done, I'm definitely going back to eating out more. I do wonder how well the restaurants will recover though, I suspect we're still going to lose a lot that have made it so far. Friday night we were at a bar/food type of establishment to eat before going to the minor league baseball game, which is what we'd normally do on a night where we go to those games. Staffing there seemed about what I'd say was normal, but the restaurant never really hit 50% capacity at any point we were in there. Now, on that particular day, capacity was still limited to 50% in our state, but this wasn't an issue where they'd hit that and were turning people away, it was that they weren't getting enough people to even hit that mark in the first place.

Yeah, obviously the pandemic is/was a terrible thing but it has been interesting "reset" for a lot of people. I had fallen into a routine of stopping by a pub on my way home the majority of work days to finish up work. I work at people's houses everyday but need to finish up some computer work before day's end. I fell into the routine of stopping at the pub when my kids were little since I couldn't get any work done once in the door at home. Well, the pandemic put an end to that and I've lost 20# in the past year due to less beer and unhealthy restaurant food.

It's been a bit of the opposite for me, mainly because of the drastic reduction of business travel. I haven't been on a plane for work since Q1 of 2020. I learned that, when traveling, I tend to eat healthier -- less snacking, salad for lunch, etc. -- and drink less than when I'm at home. And while I exercise at home, not walking several miles a week through airports, and around cities where I'm staying has probably resulted in less calorie burn. Surprisingly, I'm not itching to get back to my old UA 1K days, but I really want to get back to maybe once a month travel for my sanity (since apparently people who go to restaurants are insane :)) and a generally healthier lifestyle. My "reset" will hopefully be when my work travel gets back to normal.

I have to correct my post. Meant to say dining out in the decades ('50s, '60s, maybe even earlier) prior to the GR was the generally preserve of the wealthier. Dining out crept down to reach the lower end of the economic strata (stratum) with the advent of the franchised restaurants (many of which closed during/immediately after the GR) which catered to those in the lowest income brackets who could least afford it. One wonders if the elimination of home economics in school curriculums contributed. I bought a huge wool rug at an estate auction and looked up the obituary of the deceased. She actually had a degree in home economics and taught it in military schools.

I've long held this observation that i can get 70-80% of the quality for 20-30% of the price for most restaurants and dine out/eat out/take out foods.. May take more time but it's more enjoyable and satisfying. I'll splurge on an exquisite meal but the availability where I am is lacking (mostly good or very good, not even superb) and superb to exquisite prices.

I guess there are those who don't enjoy cooking or have the skills who may hold a different viewpoint.

And this is really the crux of the discussion on whether restaurant demand will go back to normal. There's certainly a large group that fits your final sentence. Then there are those, like our friend in this thread gaobest, who claims to be enjoying the new-found cost savings and the pleasure of cooking good food at home.

I love good food. Doesn't matter if I make it at home, eat in a Michelin-starred restaurant or a roadside shack. I happened to move from Chicago to the suburbs just about the time the lockdown started last year. Both those events changed my dining habits drastically. I'm going to restaurants less now, but that's a result of supply rather than demand. If I had the choices that were available to me in the city, I'd go out more. As choice/supply returns for others who didn't move, what will the demand be? In terms of whether this server shortage persists, the answer to that question may matter quite a bit.

We tried to take the grandkids to Red Robin for late lunch. No go. 45 minute wait with many open tables. I’d say the inability to earn top dollar tips has put them low in the server totem pole. They will have to raise wages to compete as the lower prices mean lower tips.

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.