US Restaurants Saw Productivity Jump After Covid on Takeout Boom

A shift to take-out orders helped US restaurants enjoy a 15% post-pandemic surge in productivity, which had remained largely unchanged for a generation before that, according to a new study co-written by Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The rapid productivity growth likely stemmed from reductions in the amount of time that customers spend in restaurants, Goolsbee and fellow authors from NYU Stern School of Business and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found. Since the pandemic, a rising share of customers order take-out, and many restaurants have instituted policies to limit customer dwell time.