New York restaurant reservations are about 35.3% below pre-pandemic levels

Mask mandates have been completely dropped in New York over the past few weeks, but is that enough to bring business back to so many struggling restaurants?

News 12’s Kristie Reeter takes a look in this week’s Deep Dive segment.

When looking at restaurant reservations, Caleb Silver with Investopedia says that in New York reservations are a bit slower than what we are seeing in New Jersey and Connecticut.

“We are still about 35.3% below pre-pandemic levels in terms of restaurant reservations just in the month of February. January was much worse, down 56.4% as folks stayed in due to Omicron,” says Silver.

What are we seeing in terms of jobs in the hospitality industry?

“We have seen good growth especially in 2021, about 82.5% of restaurant and hospitality jobs were recovered last year, there has been a slowdown though as of July. Restaurant job gains have slowed every month, month after month going into the end of the year. Hopefully that picks up as we get into the spring and nicer weather here in New York,” he says.