New Yorkers have plenty of reservations — about going out to eat.
Table bookings in Manhattan restaurants are down 64% in January 2022 compared to pre-pandemic January 2020 – only San Francisco (-66%) and Cambridge, Mass. (-75%) have fared worse, according to new data released by OpenTable and crunched by celebrity statistician Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.
Brooklyn boites are starved for diners, too, with reservations down 55%. Data for the other boroughs were not available.
“It’s a ghost town out there,” one Little Italy restaurant manager told The Post, citing the failure of city officials to contain crime and chaos, which drives away both tourists and local diners.
“New York City can’t recover unless bars and restaurants are at the core of the recovery,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance.
He cites several major headwinds for Gotham eateries: a lack of tourists, empty office buildings and skittish diners in a city “hit hard by the pandemic” where “people still have different comfort levels” about eating out in public.
The restaurant vaccine mandate, found only in New York City and a small handful of other major cities, also hurts these businesses, he said.
“Many people are planning events in New Jersey instead of New York City. If you live in the Bronx, you might go to Westchester or if you live in Queens you might dine out instead in Nassau County.”
Not every city is struggling. Dinner reservations have increased slightly (1%) in rapidly recovering Las Vegas, while mandate-free Miami is booming, up 14%.
