News

I don't know how much impact this has, but in the San Francisco Bay Area, while there has been some recovery since COVID-19, one phenomenon I've noticed is that even now, a much larger percentage of orders seem to be takeout rather than dine-in. I hear those "new order" audible alerts constantly at registers, but it's very common that I'm eating in a restaurant that's well under half-full. Go back to pre-COVID and I'd not infrequently need to wait to be seated. I think I've hit a full restaurant exactly once since COVID-19.

While I guess a restaurant can still function doing takeout, I assume that having a lot of dine-in facilities that aren't being used are a financial drain, and that if this doesn't change, over time more will shift to be more takeout-oriented.

And I'm sure that it's not good for wait staff.

I don't have numbers or know whether a similar situation exists elsewhere, but it's very noticeable here.

kagis

https://datadreamers.com/why-is-post-covid-restaurant-delivery-still-going-strong/

Though experts are saying COVID-19 has become endemic, the days of the pandemic are long behind us. We may have left banana bread and Tiger King largely in the past, but another pillar of those long months remains strong: delivery.

According to USAToday, 80% of American adults have used some sort of delivery service in the past year. 40% have sprung for food delivery specifically. With inflation driving prices to an all-time high, it’s hard not to wonder… why?

skims through

These seem like the most-concrete:

• Food delivery is convenient.

This is perhaps the #1 factor in why people pay for food delivery. It’s just easier than cooking or going out, especially if we’re busy or tired. Over 65% of delivery customers have said “they didn’t mind spending more money to save time and effort.”

That'd argue that people are more-willing to spend more. I don't know if that's true, but could be.

• Habit-formation is a powerful force.

As early as March of 2021, restaurant delivery experts were speculating that our COVID-era fondness for delivery would soon become a habit.

That could be true. I'd believe that COVID was just the impetus to get people over a hump to just ordering to home.

• Remote workers are here to stay.

Almost a third of the workplace is remote these days. Lots of those people used to work in urban centers with countless fun and exciting lunch options. And while plenty are happy to simply cook at home, some people miss the daily delight of a great meal out. Delivery is an excellent way for them to maintain that tradition.

That's an interesting idea that I hadn't thought about, but makes sense. I'd think that it'd mostly affect lunch, but I guess that if you have a restaurant, it's more cost-effective the more meals you can serve, so if you can't do lunch, it also impacts ability to do other meals economically.

EDIT: If the last one is a major factor -- many workers moving office from urban to suburban areas and having less restaurant access -- I'd think that it might open the door to a business model that I understand is common in India -- "lunch subscription". Basically, lunch catering with delivery that automatically shows up every day. I remember reading some article about the economics in a business publication some years back.

kagis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala

A dabbawala (also spelled dabbawalla or dabbawallah, called tiffin wallah in older sources) is a worker who delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work in India, especially in Mumbai. The dabbawalas constitute a lunchbox delivery and return system for workers in Mumbai. The lunchboxes are picked up in the late morning, delivered predominantly using bicycles and railway trains, and returned empty in the afternoon.[1][2]

It sounds like the economic factors in India driving the creation of the system were different -- that people at one location just had widely-differing tastes.

In the late 1800s, an increasing number of migrants were moving to Bombay from different parts of the country, and fast food and canteens were not prevalent. All these people left early in the morning for offices, and often had to go hungry for lunch. They belonged to different communities, and therefore had different types of tastes, which could only be satisfied by their own home-cooked meals. So, in 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche started a lunch delivery service in Bombay with about a hundred men.[3] This proved to be successful, and the service grew from there.

EDIT2: If that became common in the US as an alternative to hitting a restaurant at lunch, I wonder if it might reduce lunchtime traffic road congestion, since I assume that it's probably less-intensive to transport the food than the people.