This has been a major theme of a lot of hospitality industry news lately and it’s not going away anytime soon. I’ve been telling people for a while now that we haven’t seen the worst of what’s coming regarding business closures. I wish I was wrong. Another round of mortgage payments are due very soon and another round of restaurant operators may very well decide that they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. This New York Times article goes into some individual stories of restaurant and other business owners having to make the tough decision to shut their doors.
This article from Eater profiles one LA restaurant in particular that was forced to close the day after they finally opened back up. It’s a particularly frustrating read. It lays out very plainly how lack of leadership and the politicization of the pandemic forced states and municipalities to open too soon, only to have to shut down again when the pandemic came back in force. The victims here are small business owners who are only trying to do the right thing. The close when they’re supposed to, spend an unreal amount of time, effort, and money to open up the right way, then have to just eat it and shut down. And meanwhile there’s no relief coming from a government that’s more worried about the stock market and re-election campaigns. If governments continue to let small restaurant and bar owners hang out to dry taking the brunt of the pandemic-induced hurt, then we may not have many small restaurants left when this is over.