The National Restaurant Association predicts that the restaurant industry will lose $225 billion during the next three months, with 5 million to 7 million jobs lost. By March 23, industry experts estimated nearly half of the industry’s 15 million workers had been laid off and this was about 6 months ago.

Souplantation, a soup and salad buffet chain, closed all restaurants and laid off all staff permanently as a result of the ongoing pandemic. One of the restaurants used to be in the mall in Valencia. New Orleans’ K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen closed permanently in July. Dunkin’ Brands on July 30 also announced it would permanently close 800 donut and coffee shops at the end of the year.

Gov. Gavin Newson allowed counties to reopen sectors in May and June. But, as cases rose in June and July, the Governor ordered statewide closures of bars and indoor activities in many areas including dining and entertainment. Though outdoor dining is allowed for restaurants.

Now let’s talk to a local restaurant in Santa Clarita to see how they are doing in this chaos.

 I talked to an employee at the Valley Kebab store in Valley Marketplace. The store has  been in business for 6 years. She said that because of the pandemic she had her hours cut and got lower wages. “We had about 20 customers per day before the pandemic started, but now we have only about 10.”

I asked about the precautions they took to protect their customers and themselves from Covid-19 “We require the customers and ourselves to wear masks at all times, we change gloves frequently and use hand sanitizer multiple times throughout the day”.

The employee says that she tries to take it day by day and she’s hopeful that the restaurant will make it out of the pandemic and survive.

The restaurant industry is one of the hardest hit areas by coronavirus. Thousands of  restaurants have shut down and millions of workers lost their jobs. It is a dark time for restaurants and their workers and I hope this article makes you see the hard time restaurants are in right now.