By Ed Avis
Mexican restaurants are re-opening across the country in fits and starts, but 68 percent of them have at least partially reopened their dining rooms, according to a July 23 survey by el Restaurante magazine.
The survey covered the same topics as a survey taken on May 26. In the two months since that first survey, the number of restaurants with open dining rooms has greatly increased. In the May 26 survey, only 26 percent of respondents’ dining rooms were partially open and none were completely open. In the July 23 survey, 57 percent were partially open and 11 percent were fully open.
The number of restaurants totally closed was virtually the same in both surveys – 14 percent in the May 26 survey and 15 percent in the July 23 survey. In the May survey, 59 percent of restaurants offered take-out and delivery service only; by the July survey, that figure dropped to 17 percent as dining rooms reopened.
The survey also asked Mexican restaurant owners how their employee numbers had changed. The data show that restaurants are slowly re-hiring staff, though most are still below their staffing levels before the crisis.
In the May 26 survey, 27 percent of respondents said their staffing was the same as before the crisis; 12 percent said they had added more staff; and 61 percent said their staffing was down. In the July 23 survey, 36 percent said their staffing was back to the level of before the crisis; 12 percent said their numbers were higher than before the crisis; and 52 percent said their numbers were still down.
The survey also asked questions about safety procedures the restaurants are taking and what kind of changes they had made during the crisis. Stay tuned for those results.