Savvy or lucky? Savvy restaurateurs before this pandemic were finding ways to do what any savvy biz owner does, maximize high margin items. Impulse buying is a key part of that. Not only are the margins super fat on the booze but that booze helps to sell more food. And that all is based on people sitting down and sitting around.
I'm not as optimistic about a lot of these places surviving. They may be holding on for now. But sooner than later landlords will want rent to be paiid, et al. I woudln't be surprised to see this push things in the direct4ion f fast casual all the more. But that's just my two bits worth.
And of course that all assumes these place survive the possible coming meat shortage.
Planet Money had an interesting episode a few months ago about how the arrangement of restaurants affects the bottomline. Basically, they made the case that restaurants can almost be thought of more like real estate where people are renting a space to eat. The goal would be to find that sweet spot where you maximize the maximize the number of people having people coming through and how much they spend. They need to stay long enough to spend money especially on high-margin items like alcohol, but leave fast enough to maximize the number of customers.
Point being that the lockdown totally disrupts that normal sales funnel because patrons are not staying to make those high-margin purchases and wait staff doesn't have the opportunity to upsell either. Basically, the restaurants have lost a majority of their sales team and sale opportunities. Unless they increase margins by raising prices, they can't make money, but raising prices could hurt demand at a time when demand has already plummeted. They're between a rock and a hard place. So without a lot of outside intervention, yeah, I see a lot of restaurants closing.
