You can see this very well through a sample of data made available from OpenTable, a restaurant reservation website. Comparing the number of diners to an equivalent point in 2019 (when there was no pandemic), more and more people are clearly going out.
Nationally, there was an average 25% daily decline in seated diners in April 2021 compared to April 2019. That may seem like a large decline, but it's significantly better than the 56% average monthly decline since the pandemic began in March 2020.
The 25% decline also represents the smallest decline in seated diners since the pandemic began. The best previous month was March 2021, when the decline was 33%. We're seeing a clear trajectory of more Americans returning to their baseline behaviors when it comes to eating out.
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