Outside of health issues, Covid’s greatest impact to most New Yorkers was arguably on our world renown restaurant industry. As a life-long New Yorker, I felt this impact personally, and think it is important to highly consider several aspects of what occurred.

Initially, on January 31, 2020, President Trump imposed a nationwide travel ban on China for “non-U.S. citizens who had been in China within the last 14 days and were not the immediate family members of U.S. citizens or/and permanent residents.” Quickly following, New York City experienced a significant drop in Chinese tourists, who are the second largest group of international travelers to the city. As a result, restaurants located in NYC’s multiple Chinatowns experienced a major decrease in business. Chinese restaurants also lost many American customers. Although restaurants at large would soon undergo the extensive decline in sales due to the escalation of Covid-19 as well, Chinese restaurants continued to suffer disproportionately. Consequently, the Times reported in February 2020 that NYC’s three main Chinatowns — in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn — witnessed business drop from 50 to 70 percent in just two weeks. 

Following the trend of sickness and uneasiness due to the continued spread of Covid-19, Governor Cuomo issued a policy that caused the restaurant industry to rapidly deteriorate: first with reduced capacity, and then to total indoor dining shutdowns. On March 16, 2020, Cuomo limited restaurants to takeout and delivery only, which was “the largest disruption the restaurant industry had faced in NYC since the September 11 terrorist attacks.” 

As state and local governments continued to pass temporary closure mandates on restaurants and other non-essential businesses, employers found themselves with an extensive decrease in staffing needs. As of February 9, 2021, the National Restaurant Association estimates that restaurant employment is down 2.5 million jobs, and that the industry lost $240 billion in sales in 2020. Also, although we have not yet witnessed the pandemic’s full effects, it appears that “hundreds of thousands of restaurant businesses have permanently closed.”  In addition to restaurant closures, the Wall Street Journal has speculated that extended unemployment insurance may have also impacted worker willingness to return to their former restaurant employers. 

According to Michael Schatzberg, partner of restaurant operator Branded Strategic Hospitality, other parties hurt by the extensive decrease in restaurant business were the restaurant suppliers and distributors. Schatzberg maintained that since many restaurants were either shut down or could only operate through minimal takeout and delivery, there was less demand for meat, fish, and produce, hurting countless suppliers and distributors, which negatively impacted the supply chain as a whole. “I recall a specific conversation with a fisherman whose entire business was particularly wrecked as very few people were ordering seafood meals for takeout or delivery”, Schatzberg explained.