Restaurant Reservations

Another anomaly this week with reservations numbers. Starting June 18^th, reservations for the state of Georgia and the US jumped up very rapidly, with Georgia approaching only a -20%^yoy decrease in reservations on June 21^st. After slowly climbing for the past three months, this jump 25% jump in reservations was certainly out of the ordinary. The jump up didn’t last long however, as over the next day, reservations for Georgia and the US plummeted down, with numbers going lower than they were before the jump (-60.7%^yoy GA, -66.47%^yoy US). One theory for why these numbers fluctuated quickly would be the decrease of restaurant regulations in the south, and then following that, an uptick in confirmed covid-19 cases in these areas.

Casual Dining, Fast Food, and Bars

Casual dining foot traffic, as well as bar foot traffic, is still climbing, though the rate of recovery appears to be rounding off and slowing down. Casual dining only climbed 3%^yoy since last week, and bars only increased by 2%^yoy. This again could be due to a recent uptick in corona-virus cases in the southeast. Fast food remains unaffected.

In the News

Gov. Greg Abbott orders Texas bars to close again and restaurants to reduce to 50% occupancy as coronavirus spreads

Patrick Svitek @ The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday took his most drastic action yet to respond to the post-reopening coronavirus surge in Texas, shutting bars back down and scaling back restaurant capacity to 50%.

Georgia, Florida Report Record Number Of New Coronavirus Cases

CBS ATL

In the last eight days, Georgia reported its six greatest daily count of new cases since the start of the pandemic, including a new record high on Saturday.