Community Corner
Restaurants Reopening: Where Do They Stand, And How Do They Recover From COVID?
A year after that initial shutdown, where do restaurants stand and how do they move forward?
April 1, 2021
The COVID pandemic has damaged the restaurant industry and other large segments of the economy over the last year. At the outset, rules put in place to deal with the airborne virus forced establishments to close their doors for weeks in many parts of the country. Some never reopened. Others reopened, with safety measures in place, but couldn’t survive given the capacity limits. A heavy reliance on delivery and takeout just wasn’t feasible for restaurants with large dining rooms. Still, many of those not oriented toward in-person service pivoted and survived in the to-go environment.
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The pandemic also illuminated some of the industry’s foundational cracks, particularly when it came to workers. “Some of the cultural problems, some of the pay problems, the labor issues that have been really kind of slowly simmering to the surface for many years,” as Lilly Jan, a lecturer of food and beverage at Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, summed it up.
A year after that initial shutdown, where do restaurants stand and how do they move forward?
