The Future of the American Restaurant
On June 9, 2024, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump grabbed media headlines when he strode onto the stage at a Nevada campaign rally and spontaneously vowed to eliminate taxes on tips as the "first thing" he would do after he took office. While his pledge received mixed reviews as a public-policy concept, it hit the bullseye in terms of political instincts. Perhaps due to his experience in the casino industry, candidate Trump intuitively understood what many a politician before him had failed to grasp: the vital political, economic, and cultural importance of the American restaurant.
Though politicians often use local diners as campaign stops, few have treated the restaurant sector as a political priority. But the businesses that compose the restaurant industry — and the (often tipped) employees who work within them — are the veins through which the lifeblood of America's middle class runs. These businesses also provide America's formidable economic engine with much of its fuel, leading some commentators to suggest that "as restaurants go, so goes the economy."
In addition to providing jobs and generating economic benefits, restaurants serve yet another irreplaceable function in the American landscape: that of a cultural hub and communal gathering place. They took on this role as early as colonial times and have continued to embrace it — albeit in different forms — to the present day. From Tuesday Trivia at the local brewery to Sunday Bible Study at the neighborhood diner, food and beverage spots are in many ways the rock upon which modern American civil society is built and sustained.
Trump's no-taxes-on-tips soundbite received disproportionate attention due to his sui generis delivery style, but the economic and cultural salience of the corner bar has not been lost on the political left. In fact, well before Trump delivered his speech in Nevada, President Joe Biden escalated tipping to a national topic, calling in 2020 for tipped employees to be subject to traditional minimum-wage laws rather than allowing their tips to be calculated as part of their wages. After taking over as her party's nominee last summer, Vice President Kamala Harris — in a rare moment of bipartisan unity — also called for no taxes on tips.
For its part, the restaurant-and-hospitality sector has shown incredible vitality coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic — a testimony to the industry's resilience after many predicted its demise. By the end of 2022, the industry had added 2.8 million jobs over the prior 24 months, putting its total workforce at around 15 million. Though still 400,000 jobs below pre-pandemic levels, the industry is expected to produce 150,000 jobs per year to reach 16.5 million workers by 2030.
Despite optimistic growth trends and its critical community role, the humble restaurant faces substantial and even potentially existential challenges in the years ahead. A burgeoning "war on restaurants" by the progressive left threatens to upend much of the regulatory and legal structure under which the industry has operated for the past century. From targeting key pieces of infrastructure the sector relies on — such as the commercial gas stove and the drive-through window — to disrupting the industry's longstanding tipping traditions and franchising model in the labor sphere, the left appears determined to alter America's culinary landscape.
Right-leaning policymakers of every stripe — including pro-civil-society cultural conservatives, free-market libertarians, and pro-labor national populists — should take an interest in helping the American restaurant weather this storm. To do so, the right will not only have to play defense to protect the sector's traditional rules of governance; it must also advance a forward-thinking agenda to help the industry flourish in the years ahead.
While it may sound overwrought to proclaim that "as restaurants go, so goes the economy," the truth may be even more grandiose: As restaurants go, so goes America itself.
A FOUNDING INSTITUTION
Around the simple hearth which blazes yet
The simple planters of Virginia met,
Discussed the news, and cursed in equal terms
The odious Stamp Act and tobacco worms.
When the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia — anonymously memorialized in the above encomium — first opened its doors in the early 18th century, it quickly became a bedrock community fixture. During "Publick Times" in the spring and fall, "planters and merchants from all over the colony passed [by] it on the way to the court." In addition to conducting business within and around the tavern's walls, its patrons often "adjourned to play dice in the gaming room or to feast in the dining room."
The Raleigh Tavern would go on to host far more serious — some might have said "sinister" — gatherings. In 1773, members of the Virginia House of Burgesses, including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, convened there to draft the resolutions that would eventually hatch the famed committees of correspondence, which proved vital in tethering the fragmented colonies together in the lead-up to the Revolution.
Thus the tavern — which, in colonial times, was often part restaurant, part hotel, part courthouse, part post office — played a major role in our republic's founding. And although taverns evolved over the years (few eating spots offer lodging nowadays, much less postal services), these houses of food and drink maintained their position as cornerstones of civil society and political association throughout the successive centuries. In the 1960s, for example, lunch counters in the American South served as contested battlegrounds in the fight for desegregation. Less well known but equally important were the black-owned restaurants that helped power the decade's civil-rights movement. These establishments offered not only caloric fuel to civil-rights workers, but also much-needed meeting spaces and protective enclaves shielded from potentially violent segregationists.
These examples (and the more recent ones discussed below) help illustrate why the late sociologist Ray Oldenburg considered bars and restaurants exemplars of what he termed "third places" — spaces where individuals and groups spend time between home and work (with home being the "first place" and work being the "second place"). In addition to restaurants, third places can include churches, barbershops, public parks, and community centers.
Stuart Butler and Carmen Diaz of the Brookings Institution described third places as "locations where we exchange ideas, have a good time, and build relationships." They made a point of highlighting their community-building attributes — including their ability to "level out" people of various social classes and backgrounds by bringing them into close proximity with one another. Indeed, modern restaurants can be particularly egalitarian: By serving patrons of all classes, races, and religions, they break down political and cultural barriers in ways that, say, a denominational community church may be less capable of doing. These unique features of the restaurant make it well suited to operate as a robust third place in our time.
AMERICA'S THIRD PLACE
In 1989, when Oldenburg coined the term "third place" in his canonical book The Great Good Place, he expressed concern about the waning fortunes of the corner bar and the neighborhood restaurant. Fortunately, his concerns have since proved unwarranted: At a time when church attendance continues to decline, membership rolls in fraternal organizations are in freefall, and all levels of government are facing funding constraints that challenge their ability to maintain amenities like public parks, the plucky restaurant has valiantly carried what remains of America's civil-society torch.
Americans themselves recognize how crucial the restaurant is to the nation's civic life. In 2019, AEI's Survey on Community and Society found that 44% of Americans view having a restaurant or other entertainment spot nearby as a significant part of what makes a community successful. Restaurants barely trailed public parks (45%) but far exceeded such institutions as churches (23%) and civic organizations (16%) in terms of perceived importance.
Americans are also much more likely to view private businesses like restaurants or bars as third places than any other establishment or amenity. In another AEI survey, 29% of Americans listed cafes and coffee shops as their go-to third place, while another 29% picked restaurants or bars. Other commonly heralded third places like public libraries (3%) and community centers (2%) barely registered.
The ways food and beverage businesses operate as civil-society fixtures in the United States are as varied as they are creative. Local sports bars have long sponsored Little League teams and served as post-game gathering spots for adult softball leagues. Neighborhood restaurants often allow charities and local businesses to post signs and flyers within their walls, mimicking the public-notice boards of yesteryear.
Today, one of the most successful third places is the craft brewery. In regions where the craft-beer industry is flourishing, breweries have become primary hubs for communal gathering and socializing. Writers James Fallows and Jeff Alworth have argued that breweries are one of the key indicators — and even causes — of vibrant and healthy communities. Craft breweries now regularly host everything from religious-group meetings to pickle clubs to bluegrass jam sessions. They are also active when it comes to sponsoring charity drives.
Perhaps the most surprising third place to arise in recent decades is the chain restaurant. Starbucks, for instance, has thoroughly embraced the third-place ethos: It encourages customers to linger in its cafes to study for school, read the morning papers, or even meet up for a date. The coffee chain also offers free Wi-Fi, which has converted it into a sort of public-utility provider for those seeking a convenient and accessible internet connection. Other coffee shops, taking notice of Starbucks's success, have emulated these services.
Even more noteworthy is the rise of the fast-food chain as a vital community fixture in towns across America. McDonald's outlets in particular have become home to morning coffee clubs, weekly bingo games, community meetings, and even weekend Bible studies. This is especially true in lower-income neighborhoods. As a 2016 feature in The Guardian reported:
When many lower-income Americans are feeling isolated by the deadening uniformity of things, by the emptiness of many jobs, by the media, they still yearn for physical social networks. They are not doing this by going to government-run community service centers. They are not always doing this by utilizing the endless array of well-intentioned not-for-profit outreach programs. They are doing this on their own, organically across the country, in McDonald's....They are drawn to the McDonald's because it has inexpensive good coffee, clean bathrooms, space to sprawl. Unlike community centers, it is also free of bureaucracy.
Whether it be the independent craft brewery or the local McDonald's, it's clear that the third-place role of restaurants has expanded, not declined, in recent decades.
A FOOD-FUELED ECONOMIC ENGINE
Restaurants and other food establishments have unquestionably remained some of the most durable third places in America. But the restaurant's greatest contribution to our country may be its economic impact.
It would be difficult to overstate the role that the restaurant sector plays in America's economy. As of 2024, the industry accounted for nearly 5% of U.S. GDP. In terms of jobs, 12.4 million Americans work at pure eating-and-drinking establishments, and another 3.1 million work in other food-service enterprises like food-and-beverage stores, hospital cafeterias, and entertainment-venue vendor stands. All told, these 15.5 million Americans comprise around 10% of the nation's total workforce.
While exact comparisons are difficult given differences in how GDP impact is measured, lionized American industries like the automobile sector are said to comprise just shy of 5% of U.S. GDP and employ around 4.3 million Americans. Put another way, if policymakers want to focus on the middle class — and if politicians want to attract working-class votes — they might be wise to ditch the hard-hat photo op at factories for the chef-hat press conference in restaurant kitchens.
As important as it is to recognize how many people restaurants employ overall, it is also critical to appreciate whom they employ. The restaurant industry is one of a dwindling number of American industries that does not require employees to acquire expensive educational degrees or hard-to-obtain occupational licenses. Nearly one-quarter of the industry's workforce holds less than a high-school diploma, and about 80% of restaurant workers have an educational attainment level below an associate's or bachelor's degree. This is a critical counterbalance to the seemingly inexorable degree inflation across the U.S. economy, with studies finding that between 40% and 50% of American jobs now require a college degree.
Restaurants also serve as step-up employers for millions of underserved Americans. Forty-five percent of managers in the industry are minorities, and 47% of managers and 57% of supervisors are women — meaning the industry employs more minority and female managers than any other sector of the economy. Eight in 10 restaurant owners report getting their start in the restaurant industry at an entry-level position. Restaurants are also key employers of youth and formerly incarcerated individuals — two demographics that can struggle to find employment. Overall, half of all American adults have spent at least some time working in the restaurant industry during their lives, and a third of Americans worked their first job in a restaurant.
Writer Eli Feldman argued that restaurants — the "heart of 21st-century American life" — are "more relevant now than they have been at any other time in history." This is because of their interaction with what he views as the three main forces reshaping both the economy and the world writ large: urbanization, digitization, and globalization.
As Feldman noted, over 80% of Americans now live in metropolitan areas — a number that has doubled over the past century. But as more people crowd into cities, urban environments are becoming less personalized and more expensive. And as rents rise, housing units are becoming more cramped, and often do not include dining spaces or full kitchens.
At the same time, the percentage of meals eaten away from home has also increased to unprecedented levels in the wake of the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which tracks such trends, concluded that "the expansion of delivery and carryout options during the pandemic led to shifts in how consumers bought food away from home, which lasted longer than the [pandemic-era] policies that initiated them." In the broadest sense, one could say Americans have outsourced cooking to restaurants, and, as a result, restaurants are becoming "the shared kitchens and dining rooms of densely populated cities."
Restaurants also have an unusual relationship with digitization, which has invaded just about every aspect of 21st-century American life. Though restaurants have incorporated some technology — such as self-service touchscreens — into their business models, technology still plays a relatively limited role in the industry. And this will likely always be the case: As Feldman put it, "you can't eat megabytes of data or go out to eat online....[I]n a digital age...restaurants operate in an analog world."
Finally, very little restaurant work can be done remotely or overseas. Whereas our economy in general has seen a broad "decoupling" of manufacturing and retailing facilities, restaurants still house their "manufacturing facility" (i.e., the kitchen) and their "sales marketing space" (i.e., the dining room) under the same roof. Apart from sourcing and growing ingredients, which typically takes place further up the supply chain and is predominately overseen by other businesses, restaurant work cannot be outsourced or offshored.
The urbanization of the industrial age was largely built on Americans' moving to cities in pursuit of manufacturing jobs. But with more and more manufacturing now taking place abroad — or at least outside of cities, where land and space are less expensive — Feldman made a compelling argument that restaurants are "the last bastion of urban manufacturing."
And yet, for everything restaurants have going for them — serving as community linchpins, crucial job creators, and ladders into the middle class — the industry faces more threats than ever.
THE WAR ON RESTAURANTS
In 2023, New York became the first state to pass legislation banning natural-gas stoves in new construction. The New York City restaurant community understandably expressed concern, given that gas stovetops have long been seen as superior to electric alternatives — and even essential for certain ethnic cuisines, such as those cooked with implements like a wok. The legislation's defenders were quick to assure their culinary constituents that the bill would exempt buildings housing restaurants, but similar attempted bans in locales like Berkeley, California, have lacked a restaurant exemption.
Another popular feature of restaurant infrastructure that has started attracting controversy is the drive-through window. The American fast-food restaurant has become synonymous with drive-through ordering, but many jurisdictions are pursuing drive-through bans. With popular brands like Chick-fil-A creating long lines of cars full of hungry drivers seeking chicken sandwiches and peach milkshakes, many urban planners have started complaining that drive-throughs create undesirable road congestion. As more cities seek to emphasize walkability and de-emphasize the automobile, drive-through windows are seen by some as an archaic relic of a bygone era.
But fast-food outlets dot the landscape of many a rural and suburban community, where walkability is simply impracticable. What's more, consumer surveys show that diners prefer carryout over on-premises dining at quick-service restaurants, and the easiest way to obtain carryout is from the seat of one's car. Given that sales via drive-through windows can comprise up to 70% of a fast-food outlet's overall sales, banning them could render the entire business model unworkable.
The war on restaurants extends beyond kitchen appliances and drive-through windows to the realm of labor law. In fact, right-leaning policymakers might best serve as a bulwark protecting the longstanding legal traditions and culture of the restaurant sector by focusing on rules surrounding labor and employment.
Few workforces have attracted as much controversy over the years as restaurant employees. As far back as a decade ago, The Boston Globe argued in an editorial that "[w]hat goes on behind the kitchen doors is grim" — referring to allegedly low compensation levels, lack of benefits, and schedules that "often change on a weekly or even daily basis, making child care a nightmare to arrange."
Restaurants may provide a lot of jobs, the argument goes, but those jobs are "bad" jobs, and the workers in them are under-compensated. Although many of these criticisms are vulnerable to pushback — for example, many restaurants have started to prioritize benefit offerings in recent years — policymakers who are interested in bolstering the industry's health should not simply ignore them.
Thus far, the political left's primary response to these issues has been to push for extending traditional minimum-wage policies to the restaurant sphere. For decades, restaurants have been able to use what is known as the "tipped-wage credit," which allows them to pay their workers at sub-minimum-wage levels so long as tips make up the difference; if tips fail to cover the gap, restaurants must backfill their workers' wages. This setup has drawn fire, with claims that it causes restaurant workers to earn less than they would otherwise, and allegations that some restaurants fail to accurately ensure that tips are bridging the gap.
Liberal environs like Washington, D.C., have responded by eliminating the tipped-wage credit and applying traditional minimum-wage laws to servers and bartenders. Prior to adopting this new policy, D.C. had set the minimum wage at $5.35, allowing tips to make up the difference. By 2027, the minimum wage for restaurant workers will be increased to just over $16 an hour, thereby tripling the labor costs for servers at the district's restaurants. At the state level, blue states like New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Illinois have considered their own versions of minimum-wage bills for servers. The Biden Department of Labor also attempted via rulemaking to narrow what types of workers qualify for the tipped-wage credit. (A unanimous panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals later struck down that rule.)
Simply converting servers to traditional minimum-wage employees is likely to cause more problems than it solves. Restaurants are notoriously low-margin businesses, making labor costs enormously important in the viability of a dining establishment. This is especially the case given the aforementioned "analog" nature of most restaurant work, which prevents owners from reacting to higher labor costs by replacing workers with technology. Certain fast-casual eateries might be able to get away with touchscreen ordering, but diners are less likely to tolerate robotic "waiters" explaining the finer points of the daily special or the tasting notes for the house merlot.
It's also unclear whether these laws will actually raise compensation levels for restaurant workers. Many D.C. servers reported making upwards of $30 or $40 an hour under the tipped-wage structure — an amount that far exceeds traditional minimum-wage rates in any locale. This was one reason D.C.'s initiative to eliminate the tipped-wage structure did not enjoy as much support among the district's restaurant workforce as some predicted it would. In fact, surveys have shown that up to 90% of restaurant workers oppose ending the tipped-wage credit.
Moreover, for most restaurants to remain viable, increased labor costs must be offset by other sources of revenue. Since prohibiting the tipped-wage credit, D.C. has seen a rise in restaurants tacking "service fees" of 10-20% onto customer bills, which functionally amounts to a stealth tax on the district's diners. At the same time, the Biden administration and the political left have also been cracking down on so-called "junk fees," which, while poorly defined, could potentially include these types of restaurant service fees. Thus, by responding to one progressive policy initiative, restaurant owners are suddenly finding themselves in the crosshairs of another.
Some evidence suggests that restaurants may also be responding by shedding workers. For instance, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that as of September 2024, full-service restaurants in Washington, D.C., have cut about 1,800 workers since the advent of the new minimum-wage law — compared to the modest gain of 300 workers at limited-service establishments (the latter of which were less likely to use tipped servers).
The progressive effort to upend the restaurant labor force may have reached its peak in California's passage of the FAST Act in 2022. The bill created a 10-member Fast Food Council whose members are appointed by the governor and given the authority to oversee fast-food and fast-casual outlets in the Golden State. As originally designed, the council's power included, among other things, the ability to raise the minimum wage for restaurant workers as high as $22 an hour and to implement 3.5% annual increases beyond that; it also would have been given broad control over wages, hours, and health-and-safety standards in the industry.
The FAST Act was rightly seen as a none-too-subtle effort to import sectoral-bargaining principles — popularized in parts of Europe and Latin America — to the United States. Given the enormous importance of the restaurant industry and its employment of one-tenth of the American workforce, few doubted that politicians would soon seek to expand FAST Act-style councils to other states and even other industries. Right on cue, Virginia saw its own version of a FAST Act bill for the restaurant industry introduced during its 2023 legislative session, though it failed to advance.
So dire was the threat of such a council that the California fast-food sector filed a referendum to block it. The sector eventually settled for raising the minimum wage for its workers to $20 an hour in exchange for the council's being significantly defanged of its powers and barred from issuing rules on hot-button topics like paid time off. State policymakers also pledged not to attempt to revive the original, more obtrusive version of the council until at least 2029.
Another development in the war on restaurants is the ongoing attack on the franchise model. Many restaurant chains operate under the franchise system, whereby local individuals own outlets and operate them under the banner of a national brand. States like California, as well as the federal government, have sought to impose joint-liability standards on franchise restaurants: This would mean that employees who work at discrete franchise outlets could also be deemed employees of a parent franchising corporation, and that franchisors could be held responsible for the actions of discrete franchisees.
Under the Biden administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a rule to impose joint-employment standards at the federal level. (The Obama administration had also imposed joint-employment standards, only to have them reversed by the Trump administration.) A federal court vacated the NLRB's action, but future NLRBs under Democratic presidents are still expected to pursue joint-liability standards via board adjudication rather than formal rulemaking.
Imposing joint-liability rules on franchises is about as existential of a threat as could be conceived for fast-service restaurants. According to the International Franchise Association, the Obama-era version of joint-employer standards resulted in a 93% increase in litigation and job-opportunity losses of over 350,000.
Owning a franchise restaurant can be a key way to climb the economic ladder in modern-day America. The door to franchise ownership is open to a wide range of individuals from different demographic backgrounds, with 30% of all franchise businesses being minority owned, compared to only 18% of businesses in other sectors of the economy. Some commentators have dubbed the franchise model "the safety net of the economy," as individuals can pursue business ownership that provides them with the shepherding and established systems needed to succeed.
Resisting progressive efforts to upend the longstanding tipped-wage structure, franchise model, and drive-through window should be a priority for right-leaning policymakers at every level of government. But adopting a defensive strategy will not be sufficient to protect the American dining establishment. The political right also needs to adopt a positive, forward-looking agenda that is equal parts bold and innovative.
THE 21ST-CENTURY RESTAURANT
As noted above, one of the perceived drawbacks of restaurant work is the dearth of benefits offered to employees, which plays into criticisms that restaurant workers are unprotected and poorly compensated. Another concern is the lack of work-life balance among restaurant workers — partly due to "just-in-time scheduling" in the sector, which allows restaurant owners to call employees to the restaurant on short notice if there's a sudden influx of diners.
Those of us on the political right should resist the temptation to reflexively brush these complaints aside, especially as Republicans seek to revamp the party's image as more pro-worker in the years ahead. On the other hand, conservatives are right to oppose progressives' push to import traditional minimum-wage rules and rigid benefit mandates into the industry. These 20th-century labor policies do not respond to the needs or desires of 21st-century restaurant workers and employers. Instead of looking to the past for inspiration, policymakers should look to novel concepts that are gaining traction in the independent-contracting and gig-economy spheres.
One such concept is the portable-benefits model, which protects gig workers' status as contractors while offering them additional benefit options. Given the propensity of its workers to work for multiple employers, or "multi-app," the gig economy is particularly well suited to a portable-benefits arrangement. But some elements of the concept could make sense in the context of restaurant workers. For example, restaurant owners (alongside workers themselves) could contribute to accounts that operate similarly to a SEP-IRA, allowing tipped employees to use funds from those accounts for paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, health insurance, and the like.
Offerings for these workers could be made available through benefit exchanges. As my colleague Eli Lehrer has written in these pages in the context of gig work, such exchanges could be operated by entities ranging from insurance to investment firms — and even, if a federal labor-law waiver system were established, by labor unions without requiring union membership.
To encourage restaurant owners to be open to a portable-benefits model for their employees, the system — drawing on gig-economy proposals that protect independent contractors' status — could ensure legal protection and maintenance of the tipped-wage credit. Ideally, a single piece of legislation could protect the credit while also onboarding a new portable-benefits system. This would simultaneously help workers and be less costly for restaurant owners than traditional minimum-wage rates.
Right-leaning policymakers could also repurpose and restructure bad ideas to show how sector-wide rules can be pursued via voluntary agreement rather than government diktat. A FAST Act-style council that can simply impose sector-wide rules through its edicts alarmingly mirrors aspects of European sectoral bargaining, which can make businesses less competitive and even harm workers. Instead, policymakers should develop a more collaborative, industry-centric approach to the issue.
One potential option would be to establish a system of state-level "sectoral collaboration," in which a council or committee contains a 50-50 representation of the interests of restaurant owners and workers. The committee could be empowered to rewrite any non-civil-rights labor or employment laws for the restaurant sector. Those who served on the committee would not be solely appointed by a state governor as in California's FAST Act, thereby protecting the committee from becoming overly politicized. Instead, business and labor representatives could be nominated and selected by relevant industry stakeholders. Or, to help ward off potential non-delegation-doctrine concerns, each of these industry groups could instead put forth a pool of nominees from which a governor or other government official could select.
Thanks to the 50-50 split in representation, these collaborative committees would be toothless to act unless parties from both sides of the labor equation agreed. If committee members were unable to agree — perhaps by some supermajority threshold like 60%, which would ensure that at least some portion of both owner and worker representatives supported a proposal — current status-quo labor law would continue to govern the sector. This setup could allow for the development of flexible and experimental labor models that benefit both workers and employers. To provide a buffer against potential collusion between large national restaurant chains and Big Labor, an opt-in system or grandfathering mechanism could be used to protect small and independent restaurants.
As an example of how this might work, a collaborative committee could propose, say, a $20-an-hour minimum wage for any restaurant workers who can be ready to work within an hour of whenever a restaurant owner calls them, or $15 per hour for more predictable hours. This would allow owners to use just-in-time scheduling techniques while empowering some workers to choose more scheduling predictability. Small, independent restaurants could opt into this system on a voluntary basis, or perhaps be given a five-year grandfathering period before the system applies to them.
The tipped-wage debate could be addressed in a similar manner. The committee could establish an agreement that allows servers to keep 100% of their tips in exchange for more scheduling certainty while allowing others to opt for a traditional minimum wage along with on-call availability. Secondary earners within households might appreciate the possibility of being able to earn $30 or $40 an hour by the time tips are factored in while also being able to attend their kids' weekend soccer games or ballet recitals. In comparison, a young, unmarried graduate student might care less about being called into work on a moment's notice, but once there, he would appreciate the certainty of earning a $20 minimum wage.
Finally, as lawmakers and regulators increasingly seek to insert themselves into decisions regarding kitchen appliances and floor-plan layouts — in the form of gas-stove bans and drive-through prohibitions — a more adroit response would be to radically expand the ways in which the American restaurant can operate.
According to a recent survey of restaurateurs conducted by the National Restaurant Association, the rise of remote work is "blurring traditional meal times." Restaurant owners are adapting to this new normal by seizing on "new opportunities to entice customers at all hours with engaging offerings, including off-hours or slow-day value deals, flexible pricing, multi-course meal bundles, meal kits and subscriptions, apparel, and more."
Restaurants are also adapting to consumers' demands for more flexible dining experiences. As Brian Warrener of Johnson & Wales University has noted, a fine-dining establishment operating before the pandemic may have served "nearly all of its meals in its brick-and-mortar dining room," but, post-pandemic, it might have "pivoted to offer contactless take-out, third-party delivery, in-house delivery, cocktails-to-go, meal kits, cocktail kits and off-premise retail sales."
Reforming urban zoning rules to allow restaurants to reinvent themselves could better enable them to adapt to the changing needs of both employees and consumers. Ideas like allowing restaurants in urban locales to request temporary delivery and loading zones on roads that attach to their place of business could help streamline pandemic-inspired concepts like the meal kit and contactless takeout. Height restrictions could be eased to allow for new concepts like "elevated drive-throughs" — where the kitchen is housed on a second story of the building — to proliferate, creating more ground-level space for cars and easing drive-through congestion concerns.
Lawmakers should also consider ways to make it easier for individuals to open new restaurants, thereby enabling more pop-ups and micro-restaurants to flourish. Other than obtaining a basic food-service certification (and a liquor license, if selling alcohol), would-be restaurateurs should face little else in the way of burdensome regulatory hurdles when launching their establishments. Relatedly, the system of liquor-license quotas that many states currently operate under should be rethought. Such quotas primarily serve to artificially cap the number of restaurants that are able to obtain approval to sell alcohol, which in turn creates a secondary market for liquor licenses that can climb to upwards of a million dollars. Given that alcohol sales often comprise a substantial portion of a restaurant's profit margin, the survival of a newly opened local restaurant may hinge on its ability to secure an affordable liquor license. In this vein, a final idea would be to continue the pandemic-initiated expansion of to-go and alcohol-delivery privileges for restaurants to help them further differentiate their income streams.
Giving restaurants the tools to adapt and reinvent their business models should be a guiding principle for right-leaning policymakers seeking to springboard dining establishments into the future. Fortunately, all of the initiatives described above — from benefit exchanges to deregulation to zoning reform — fall well within the political right's wheelhouse.
SO GOES AMERICA
Community cornerstone, canonical third place, durable jobs provider, bedrock of the American working class — the roles filled by the unassuming restaurant have become as essential as ever. At a time when Americans can barely agree on anything, we can agree on our natural urge to convene, break bread, and unwind within a rare analog bastion of sanity — a desire that somehow endures amid our increasingly distracted and scattered age.
When asked by a woman what type of government the framers had constructed inside Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin is said to have responded, "a republic, if you can keep it." If this is true, perhaps the first thing we should do is order a pint at the corner pub and discuss the local happenings with our nearby barstool mates. For the future health of the republic and the American restaurant, it seems, are inextricably linked.
