COVID Restrictions Hurt Baltimore Restaurants And Some Won't Recover: Report

BALTIMORE, MD — The restaurant industry was one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and a new study shows that restaurants in the Baltimore area are some of the least likely to recover this year. The finding put Maryland at No. 7 among the top 50 metro areas in the nation facing tough odds to bounce back from COVID effects.

Washington, D.C., was the metro listed as having the most restaurants at risk, with spending down 24 percent at the city's restaurants and hotels.

LendingTree, an online loan marketplace, analyzed key metrics, including consumer spending at restaurants, job postings in the hospitality industry, and time consumers spent away from home at retail and restaurants, across the 50 largest metro areas to find the places where the restaurant industry is most and least likely to recover this year.

The Baltimore restaurant industry ranks among the least likely to recover because it is near the bottom in nearly all the metrics examined, LendingTree found. While Baltimore ranks as the seventh metro least likely to recover, its 33 percent growth in consumer spending at restaurants and hotels ranks second-best across all metros.

The restaurant industry in San Francisco is the second-least likely to recover this year behind D.C. San Francisco ranks last among the 50 metros in job postings in the restaurant industry and time spent away from home at restaurants.

Rounding out the five metro areas with restaurant industries least likely to recover from the pandemic are Oakland, California, San Jose, California, and Miami, Florida.

The restaurant industry is most likely to recover in Oklahoma City. The metro area leads the list thanks to a strong employment recovery and a sizable pool of restaurant workers, according to the LendingTree analysis.

"It’s reasonable that many of the metros ranked most likely to recover are in those positions in part because they’re in states where restrictions on dining out have been more lax or nonexistent compared to states that virtually shut down restaurants for months on end," LendingTree said.

The most expensive metro areas tend to have the worst scores in the analysis. Cost of living in the U.S. is highest in San Francisco and San Jose, which come in at No. 49 and No. 47, respectively, for restaurant industry recovery potential. New York, which has the third-highest cost of living, comes in at No. 40, according to the LendingTree study.