I think takeout is reasonably safe and I approve of walking more and actively try to encourage that. I think we should be moving to a takeout culture over a dining out culture.
We also need to be updating our design standards to make dining out safer. Due to increasing distances between tables and similar, I think this will be even more expensive than what we do currently and make dine-in restaurants mostly limited to more expensive restaurants.
I've left remarks about that elsewhere on HN. I am actively trying to encourage people to get takeout to try to support local eateries and hopefully reduce the damage to the economy.
I've been promoting Little Caesar's as a good example of what works well. They're entire business model is takeout and delivery. They had a pizza portal for contactless pickup before covid19, but it wasn't being used locally. The past few days, it is being used. There are pizzas in the customer facing pizza portal warming ovens for the first time ever.
I would also like to see Walmart write the handbook for how to design public bathrooms. The cleanliness of the bathroom is often a make or break for me personally in being a customer, especially for a fine in experience.
That cleanliness is highly dependent upon good design. No amount of maid service can really fix a badly designed bathroom.
I like motion activated faucets, motion activated hand dryers and motion activated paper towel dispenser and soap dispensers. Motion activated toilets are a nice to have, but less important to me than being able to properly wash my hands afterwards.
One of the best features of Walmart bathrooms is the lack of doors. Most people use a paper towel to open the bathroom door to leave rather than touch the door.
This is hard to do at a smaller scale. Walmart has large stores with large bathrooms.
But that doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means we haven't really tried to solve for this before because it wasn't a priority. I see no reason why we can't come up with better practices for public bathrooms on a smaller scale than what you typically see today in smaller establishments.
I agree about supporting takeout now; I'm focusing on independent restaurants, especially Asian ones as I fear they are having the toughest time now. Local publications have said this takeout business isn't much help right now. But it may be different case by case. I went to a local bakery the weekend before this past one expecting them to be having a hard time but they seemed to be doing more business than usual.
Takeout isn't a substitute for people going out to eat together, though, and if I am eating a distance from home, I will look for a place to sit.
People's requirements will differ though. Certain things like cleanliness are applicable for all, but others may not be. Little Caesars may be a good solution for you, but I doubt I could eat their food as I can't eat gluten. Another friend of mine can't eat soy, so she would need to skip most Chinese restaurants that I love. While it is an ideal for a restaurant to be able to accommodate all issues, it can't always happen.
Please note the framing of my remarks about Little Caesar's: that they are an example of something that works well for germ control. I was intentionally careful to not frame it as "Everyone should eat at Little Caesar's."
I was homeless for years. Dine in is problematic when you are homeless. You get profiled and thrown out of places when you show up with all your bags.
I also mostly didn't like eating in restaurants while homeless because of my health issues. People are awful about doing things like blowing their nose at the table without warning in a crowded restaurant (for which there would already be a de facto death sentence if looks could kill and you are doing it near me).
I generally tried to find open air picnic tables, got my food to go and ate it at some outdoor public seating area. I don't see any reason why we can't do more sidewalk care style seating generally.
I live in a really small town and have no car. The Denny's shuttered its doors a few days ago. The grocery store where I sometimes got self-serve soup has eliminated all self-serge food. The McDonald's inside the Walmart has been closed.
I'm seeing my options shrink dramatically. Little Caesar's and hot premade deli food from Walmart and a grocery store have been my takeout options of late. Fortunately, I recently reacquired a grill just as this was all beginning, so I have some limited cooking ability as well. For about a month, I was entirely dependent on takeout.
A week or so ago, the staff at the local Little Caesar's was clearly very stressed about the possibility of going out of business. Their business has picked up and, for the first time ever, I am seeing pizza boxes in their pizza portal warming ovens. Staff stress levels have come down.
Everyone there seems to know my first name and act like I'm their best friend. I've been a regular here lately, in part because other options aren't available to me.
I want to support them in part because they have the freshest dough of any large American chain. They make it in house daily.
Because they are takeout and delivery only, they have less overhead. The food is better quality and cheaper and the food is more hygienic.
Whatever takeaways one can come up from their business model may well separate the wheat from the chafe in coming months. No one has money. Everyone needs to be worried about germ control. Finding business models that combine cleanliness, high food quality and low cost instead of asking you to pick one or two of those would be extremely helpful in getting us to the other side in better shape and more able to face the future.
Outdoor seating as you described works in certain seasons and in certain locations. Not very practical where it gets below freezing.
Little Caesars may be high quality for you. It's poison for me. Doesn't matter how clean it is. Not saying that to disparage the points you made, but eating that food would slowly kill me. Food intolerances, or more likely our awareness of them, seen to be increasing so that is another challenge to accommodate. The restaurant business is a tough one.
I'm in a medium sized suburb in a metro area of maybe 3 million people. Partly public transit accessible in normal times. Service is of course curtailed now. There are lots of places to eat walking distance from my home. A good number are closed now. No doubt some won't reopen, unfortunately. Rent where I live has skyrocketed in recent years, we'll see what affect the pandemic has on that.
Blowing one's nose in public is gross. I wish I lived in a culture where it was not acceptable.
Re outdoor seating: I'm only trying to suggest that I was able to find viable answers under very difficult circumstances with significant constraints. I was very poor and very ill at the time.
I'm not actually trying to suggest that this is the one and only acceptable gold standard answer, though I do think there is room for using it more often than happens in places I have been.
Surely, the world can find answers that work. We just need to make it our business to do that.
I also have a lot of dietary restrictions. Again: I'm trying to convey details about the business model, not about the specific food type per se.
Agree about the business model. I don't think all places can meet all requirements, but those who can meet more of them will get more business. Still, from what I know as a consumer about the restaurant business, it's an extremely tough one and only getting tougher. I have sympathy for anyone getting into it and honestly trying to make a go of it.
And I did get carryout after our discussion during my socially distanced walk. Enjoyed my food, enjoyed my walk. And the restaurant is supposedly providing some meals to people in need, which is extremely generous of them. I do need to strike a balance with that, though. Most restaurant food has the down side of being too fattening. Something I need to watch.
There's no need for most of those changes. Pandemics are historically rare and the risk is low for the majority of people. Most of us will be back to patronizing dine-in restaurants within a year.
We also need to be updating our design standards to make dining out safer. Due to increasing distances between tables and similar, I think this will be even more expensive than what we do currently and make dine-in restaurants mostly limited to more expensive restaurants.
I've left remarks about that elsewhere on HN. I am actively trying to encourage people to get takeout to try to support local eateries and hopefully reduce the damage to the economy.
I've been promoting Little Caesar's as a good example of what works well. They're entire business model is takeout and delivery. They had a pizza portal for contactless pickup before covid19, but it wasn't being used locally. The past few days, it is being used. There are pizzas in the customer facing pizza portal warming ovens for the first time ever.
I would also like to see Walmart write the handbook for how to design public bathrooms. The cleanliness of the bathroom is often a make or break for me personally in being a customer, especially for a fine in experience.
That cleanliness is highly dependent upon good design. No amount of maid service can really fix a badly designed bathroom.
I like motion activated faucets, motion activated hand dryers and motion activated paper towel dispenser and soap dispensers. Motion activated toilets are a nice to have, but less important to me than being able to properly wash my hands afterwards.
One of the best features of Walmart bathrooms is the lack of doors. Most people use a paper towel to open the bathroom door to leave rather than touch the door.
This is hard to do at a smaller scale. Walmart has large stores with large bathrooms.
But that doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means we haven't really tried to solve for this before because it wasn't a priority. I see no reason why we can't come up with better practices for public bathrooms on a smaller scale than what you typically see today in smaller establishments.