The food and beverage sector lost 2.5 million jobs in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2021 State of the Restaurant Industry Report.
The report also found restaurant and foodservice industry sales fell by USD 240 billion (EUR 197 billion) in 2020 and more than 110,000 eating and drinking places were closed for business temporarily or permanently, according to a new report.
“As we approach the one-year mark of pandemic-related dining restrictions, we know that virtually every restaurant in every community has been impacted,” NRA President and CEO Tom Bené said in a press release.
The report is based on a survey of 6,000 restaurant operators and a survey of 1,000 consumers. It contained some good news for the industry as well, as it found pent-up consumer demand for eating out, which could help bring back sales quickly once COVID-19 becomes less of a national concern.
“While we still have a long way to go, we are confident in the resilience of the industry’s workforce, operators, suppliers, and diners,” Bené said. “The year ahead will be critical as we continue to advocate for much-needed recovery funds to help get our industry back on track.”
Of restaurants that closed for good in 2020, the majority were well-established businesses and fixtures in their communities, the report found.
“These operators had been in business, on average, for 16 years, and 16 percent of them had been open for at least 30 years,” NRA said.
Seventy-two percent of restaurant owners who made the decision to permanently close their establishments say it’s unlikely they’ll open another restaurant in the months or years ahead. And only 48 percent think they’ll stay in the restaurant industry in some form in the months or years ahead.
However, there is no doubt that consumers are ready to return to restaurants, NRA said. Six in 10 adults surveyed said restaurants are “an integral part” of the country’s social fabric and an essential part of their lifestyle. Of those surveyed, 88 percent said they enjoy going to restaurants and 85 percent said going out to a restaurant with family or friends is a better way to spend their leisure time than cooking at home, the report said.
“Restaurants are the cornerstone of our communities, and our research shows a clear consumer desire to enjoy restaurants on-premises more than they have been able to during the pandemic,” National Restaurant Association Senior Vice President Hudson Riehle said. “We’ve also found that even as the vaccine becomes more available and more social occasions return to restaurants, consumers will continue to desire expanded off-premises options going forward. Both will continue to be key for industry growth.”
While the restaurant industry’s sales will likely increase this year compared to 2020, the magnitude of the growth is “certainly nowhere near enough to put the industry back where it was prior to the pandemic,” Riehle told SeafoodSource earlier this month.
The COVID-19 pandemic remains an insurmountable obstacle for restaurants and bars in drawing back customers. In late April 2020, 83 percent of adults said they were not eating on-premises at restaurants as often as they’d like, a big jump from the 45 percent reported in January of last year, before the COVID-19 crisis had arrived in the United States.
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