Maybe you've seen these reports from the Washington Post and the NY Times about the decline in restaurant reservations which coincides with the arrival of the National Guard in DC. If not here's a sample from the Post:
Since President Donald Trump announced his takeover of the D.C. police force last week, restaurant reservations have dropped in the city by as much as 31 percent year over year for a single day, according to restaurant booking data. Business owners are concerned that the continued surge in law enforcement could impact their revenue during a vital period of the summer...
It’s difficult to get an exact read on the state of D.C. dining since the federalization of local police. On the day of Trump’s announcement, the number of online reservations in Washington dining rooms dropped by 16 percent from the same date the previous year, according to OpenTable. Since then, reservations have dipped almost every day, falling as much as 31 percent in a single day compared to the same period in 2024.
But it turns out the Post probably botched the data it was relying on to make this point. This was made clear in a letter to the editor by Ryan Bourne:
The Aug. 21 front-page article “D.C. restaurants suffer amid federal crackdown” badly overstated the impact of President Donald Trump’s federalization of D.C. police on restaurant attendance.
Buried in the article is a key point that undermines the headline: OpenTable’s daily data showing 20 percent to 31 percent drops in seated reservations compares this year’s Aug. 12-17 period with last year’s equivalent dates. But every single one of those 2024 numbers occurred during last year’s Restaurant Week, which always inflates reservations significantly. This year’s Summer Restaurant Week started one week later. That timing quirk alone makes the fall in the first week of federalization look far steeper than it really is.
Just to spell this out a bit more, last year's Summer Restaurant Week was scheduled from Aug. 12 to Aug. 18. But this year the same promotion happened a week later from Aug. 18 to Aug. 24. Why does that matter? Because the Open Table data the Post relied upon compares same date reservations year over year. So if you compare Aug. 12 data from this year (not Restaurant Week) to the same date from last year (Restaurant Week) you get a big decline of 27%. But obviously that's because last year there was a big promotion and this year there is not.
By chance, Trump announced he was taking over the DC police on Aug. 11 and on that date there was a 16% decline compared to last year but it's likely that's because some people were getting a head start on Restaurant Week last year when Aug. 11 was a Sunday. This year, the National Guard didn't even start arriving on the streets until Aug. 12 anyway. So it's hard to blame that 16% decline on them.
Anyway, you can look at the Open Table data yourself here. Change the 2nd chart to "City" and you'll see Washington, DC at the bottom. And sure enough there was a big drop in reservations last week because you're comparing it to Restaurant Week of 2024. But guess what happens starting on Aug. 18, the first day of Restaurant Week 2025? Reservations were up 29% compared to last year and they continued to be up by double digits for the next 8 days. In other words, Restaurant Week 2025 was a success.
To be clear, the Post knew about all this and said it might be a problem with the data in the original story. But they buried this key fact six paragraphs in to a story packed with anecdotes about a decline in reservations.
Some of the decline in reservations could be attributed to timing: The first week of the takeover, Aug. 11 to 17, ended one day before Restaurant Week began. Those same dates in 2024 fell during Restaurant Week, when presumably reservations were increasing as diners scrambled to secure the discounted three-course meals.
So, yes, they knew this was probably misleading but they went with it anyway because resistance journalism provides all the reason they need to do anything. The NY Times story was actually worse:
Data from the reservation service OpenTable shows that reservations to Washington restaurants for this year’s promotion are 24 percent lower than those during Restaurant Week 2024, held at the same time last year.
So what are they claiming here? They seem to be saying that if you compare the total reservations for Restaurant Week this year compared to the total last year (which again were on different weeks) that there was a big decline this year. However that data is not available on the public Open Table website. Did they get special access to non-public data to come up with this factoid?
Again, Ryan Bourne is on it. He asked Open Table where they NY Times got this and they said the NY Times did not have any special access to data. Instead, they said the Times made an error.
This @nytimes article still claims (incorrectly) that restaurant reservations were down 24 percent in DC in a restaurant week to restaurant week comparison: https://t.co/2OYvOdrZkz
— Ryan Bourne (@MrRBourne) August 27, 2025
OpenTable says they have told NYT this is untrue. And they confirmed it to me by email. pic.twitter.com/D6A7sqxreB
There's no correction from the NY Times on this story. So it looks like they are just going to pretend not to notice this error.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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