Soleil Ho, the paper’s restaurant critic, warned Monday that while the economic devastation was not “inevitable,” it was almost certain, as restaurants that invested tens of thousands of dollars in outdoor dining would struggle to recoup their costs:
Outdoor dining has been paused in many Bay Area counties, including San Francisco and Alameda counties — a logical health policy step but a punch in the stomach for the restaurant industry. Restaurants have plunked down tens of thousands of dollars on outdoor dining structures and heat lamps and rehired staff to make an impossible situation work.
Restaurant workers will likely be laid off en masse again, just in time for the Dec. 31 expiration of emergency federal unemployment aid, and restaurant owners have told me that they’re wracked with guilt over the possibility of cutting people loose in the midst of a worsening pandemic. Everyone has bills to pay and mouths to feed, and life can only get harder from here. Without meaningful aid to help the country survive this next lockdown, this is bad news for restaurants, but, above all, awful news for people.
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