The modern American restaurant and its variants --- cafes,
bistros, diners, brasseries, coffee shops, cafeterias, and
eateries --- have become central institutions in our national
life and indispensable to our social culture.
Shutting them all down at the outset of the current pandemic
emergency might have been an inevitable step to take for a
sensibly brief period, but any extended period of imposed
closure will profoundly damage the industry and force a
large percentage of individual establishments to close
permanently.
In Minnesota, and particularly the Twin Cities and its suburbs,
some restaurants (which are able to do so) are open for takeout
and delivery. But these services are only temporary --- they do
not generate enough revenue to sustain the enterprise.
Restaurateurs are entrepreneurs, and they can and want to
adapt to safety requirements for their staffs and customers.
Most of them have the facilities to do so.
The restaurant business is a tough business in good times.
Even successful and popular ones often have a run of only a
decade or two. A few, most of them with large seating capacity,
survive a long time. They are more likely to make it through a
longer shutdown, but their number is small.
With proper sanitary, spacing, preparatory and table delivery
measures, it would appear there is no reasonable cause to keep
restaurants in most locales closed for public seating.
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Copyright (c) 2020 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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