An Extinction Event for America’s Restaurants

The post-pandemic dining experience may be unrecognizable in many restaurants with masked servers, social distancing between tables, and no open condiments of any kind being served.

In conversations with dozens of restaurant operators, Matt Goulding offers a grim but fascinating look at the state of the industry — especially for the independent restaurants in your neighborhood you know and love.

"What emerged from the nearly 50 hours of conversation was a consistent narrative about how restaurants can salvage their business—and how hard that will be," Goulding reports. "It will take rapid scientific advancement, strong local support, continued government relief, and industry-wide innovation. All of which is to say that the restaurants that make it will not be the same, and not just because your hostess will wield a thermometer and your server will wear a mask and the chef will struggle to taste and tweak her food while swaddled in PPE."

Read the full story here.