#30 - Going Out To Eat

Getting a piece of pizza has never been harder.

In these topsy turvy times, easy questions are getting harder to answer. For example: want to go out to eat? A few months ago this was a relatively straightforward question. Assuming you were hungry, the decision tree looked something like this:

In the Covid-19 era, things are more complicated. At minimum, the question of personal comfort needs to be addressed: 

Not only are there more nodes and branches on the tree, but the yes or no calculus has changed as well.

Are restaurants open? Tens of thousands are shuttered temporarily if not permanently. Where restaurants are open, many are operating at reduced capacity. Getting to yes is harder here. 

The same dynamic exists for disposable income. Almost 40M Americans have filed for unemployment over the past ten weeks. In households earning less than $40,000 per year, nearly 40% of those working in February lost their jobs in March or April, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve. Millions of workers who are still employed have seen their hours cut or their salaries reduced. Yes is less likely here as well. 

Source: US Employment and Training Administration data per Axios, 2.1 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, May 28, 2020

When it comes to comfort, the spectrum ranges from living in a plastic bubble to attended the Zero Ducks Given party at Blackwater Jacks. In late March, 77% of Americans said they would be uncomfortable eating out in restaurants, according to the Pew Research Center. With the number of new confirmed cases receding, this percentage is likely trending down. A recent survey from Eater Atlanta found that about one-third of respondents wouldn’t feel comfortable returning to a restaurant until the CDC or health experts say it’s safe.

Let's say you make it to the restaurant, how will you feel if a diner near you starts coughing?

A few weeks ago, Howard Marks noted that the world is a more uncertain place today than at any other time in our lifetimes. Getting a piece of pizza has never been harder.