Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
Without some sort of federal aid to get new businesses of this sort on their feet post-pandemic, the answer is basically much greater market concentration within the industries, as chains with deep enough pockets to survive (or entirely new chains constructed by venture capital) move in on the market share formerly taken up by smaller businesses.
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I think this is right. It's hard to create a new class of restaurant entrepreneurs from scratch in a few years (how did Germany and Japan restart their small businesses after the war? Where did the capital come from?). But it's much more possible for large chains to expand with venture capital and bank funding.
In NYC, restaurants were already trending away from mom-and-pops to restaurant "groups" of 5-10 restaurants managed in a more professional way, because of increases in rent and regulations that were hard for true newcomers to manage compared to before. After covid, if a lot of places close (but isn't most of the USA doing ok?), it will be the chains with deep pockets that can expand. Like a meteor killing off the dinosaurs, but instead of small mammals you get Chopt and upmarket brands from McDonalds or something.