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The U.S. restaurant industry is in a funk. Blame it on lunch.
Americans made 433 million fewer trips to restaurants at lunchtime last year, resulting in roughly $3.2 billion in lost business for restaurants, according to market-research firm NPD Group Inc. It was the lowest level of lunch traffic in at least four decades.
While that loss in traffic is a 2% decline from 2015, it is a significant one-year drop for an industry that has traditionally relied on lunch and has had little or no growth for a decade.
"I put [restaurant] lunch right up there with fax machines and pay phones," said Jim Parks, a 55-year-old sales director who used to dine out for lunch nearly every day but found in recent years that he no longer had room for it in his schedule.
Like Mr. Parks, many U.S. workers now see stealing away for an hour at the neighborhood diner in the middle of the day as a luxury. Even the classic "power lunch" is falling out of favor among power brokers.
Re-heating leftovers in the break room microwave takes two minutes and is guaranteed to be on your diet?
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday May 31 2017, @04:34AM (2 children)
I stopped taking lunches when I realized it meant I could go home sooner and that the company did not care if I ate while I worked if I choose to eat at all. I have recently been using lunch as an excuse to walk around with a coworker while in a non-office setting to hear out their problems with various coworkers / projects so that I can defuse them better. In general I find lunch a huge waste of time that could be spent coming into work late or going home early.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 31 2017, @06:19AM (1 child)
Speak for yourself; maybe you don't need food mid-day, but I certainly do. My performance would go to utter shit if I didn't get some kind of meal in there.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:19PM
Should have said that better. Lunch is a huge waste of time for me. Fully understand the desire of others to get out/eat/take a break, I just don't need it. My preferred employers are ones that are good about making sure not to bug people on their lunch breaks or make it seem like you should be working instead, but also not get bitchy at you for working through it.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam