Projecting how people will eat and drink in 2021

Projecting how people will eat and drink in 2021 isn’t quite the same as before. Given what happened in 2020 and early 2021, it’s absurd to focus on hot ingredients or trendy ways to eat when lives and jobs are on the line.

Expect fewer restaurants

Let’s start with bad news: there will be fewer restaurants. The industry will take some time to bounce back — “2022 before fast food/drive-thru/delivery restaurants fully recover … and 2022 or later before sit-down restaurants prosper.”

Even celebrity chefs have to pivot. Along with the shutdown of thousands of restaurants (plus more to come), star chefs will resort more to gigs — opening popups in spaces with better short-term rent deals, at friends’ restaurants or from their own kitchens. Food wise, will they forego fancy dishes for top-notch comfort food? Think “the best possible barbecue, or the Platonic hamburger, or knock-your-socks-off salsa for their ultimate roast chicken.”

Eventually, fewer restaurants will lead to higher menu prices, but it isn’t all bad. Wages will increase in response to “calls for gender-racial-class equity.” Moreover, with fewer people dining out because of higher prices, expect the dining industry’s business model to go through a much needed rebalance.