Dramatic Decline in Restaurant Traffic

There are some sectors that will be hit hard over the next several months: hotels, airlines, restaurants, movie theaters, sporting events, and convention centers.   People will probably avoid these places as part of social distancing.

Here is some restaurant data from OpenTable (HT FBC)

Click on graph for larger image.

This data shows the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US, the states of Washington and New York, and a few impacted cities (Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston).

This data is through March 12, 2020.

Seattle and San Francisco saw a dramatic decline starting at the beginning of March.     Starting a few days ago, restaurant traffic is declining sharply just about everywhere.

Clearly the US will need to help the employees (and owners) of these impacted sectors.