I have lost multiple restaurants over the past few years. The final two closed last year in California.
At first, it was easy to explain. COVID-19 hit, and everything changed overnight. Then came the actor strikes, the writer strikes, and the fires that swept through Los Angeles. One by one, these events reshaped the economic and cultural landscape. The city felt different. People moved differently. They spent differently.
Restaurants, especially the kind I built, started to struggle in a way that felt deeper than a temporary downturn. I operated in what I would call the middle, casual, sit-down, mid-priced restaurants. Not fast food, not fine dining. The place where families gather, where people linger, where community happens over a meal.
That middle is disappearing.
I watched a shift in behavior, in real time. The customer who used to go to a casual sit-down restaurant is now ordering at the counter in a fast casual setting, while the person who used to go to fast casual is pulling back even further, choosing fast food because it fits their budget. Those who regularly eat at fine dining establishments can continue to do so. There was no fall down into the middle from the top. Instead, everyone stepped down a rung, leaving the middle hollowed out.
At the time, I thought this might be a California story, but it wasn’t. It was an early warning.
Fast food prices are even ridiculous now !!! And they are not fast.