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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

Food delivery to homes will probably boom. That's going to be the replacement for visiting a restaurant in the coming weeks or months.

But every luxury industry that involves going outside and meeting people will be wiped out. The tourist industry is going to be completely dead for a while. Hopefully it can be revived afterward. Hopefully the people involved can find other jobs in the mean time. But it's going to be a harsh year for a lot of people.

It's unbelievable how lucky I am that I can do my work from home.

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if you're home all day long one of the main spurs for going out to eat is gone, at the end of the day you're no longer too tired to make food, you're not getting home too late to make it at a good time, you don't need to save time. Thus the only spur left to wanting to order food is eating something tasty you can't make at home easily - I admit that is good but given that the delivery is also a potential virus delivery I expect that it won't be the replacement.

I'd like to believe this is true, but I once was at my boss's house and saw inside his fridge. All it has was a few beers. I asked him where his food was and he said he ate out for every meal. He was a single guy in a 5000 square foot home on an acre of land. I suppose he could afford to buy every meal out. I kind of doubt he will magically start using his kitchen.

It's a spectrum. We normally eat out a lot and usually had a reasonably full fridge but ever since this all started I made sure our pantry and fridge were full, and we've been cooking at home ever since.

Have you thought about keeping your pantry full as a reserve and still eating out / getting delivery a lot? It’s what I’ve been doing since I want my favorite restaurants to still be around when this is all over.

Fair question - my wife is too nervous about getting us sick since both my daughter and I are in risk categories. We're fine with the occasional trip to the store but are holding off restaurants for now. And I get it - there's some local restaurants that I love and I feel bad for them, but the risk right now isn't worth it.

I think I'd actually rather order delivery than go to a supermarket where everybody touches the same carts and baskets. Do they wash those things down regularly? I sincerely hope so.

every statistic has its outliers. If I was rich enough I suppose I would have a catering deal to have food delivered to me from a few restaurants, but I'm not rich enough. Probably most people aren't rich enough and only eat out for the reasons I do, I'm just too tired to make the food once again and want something I like the taste of quick. Probably the people rich enough to eat out every meal have a 5000 square foot home on an acre of land - at least.

5000 square foot?! Isn't that about 500 m^2?

I think my wife and I could afford to eat out every meal if we really wanted to (and we didn't go to anything too fancy), but we certainly don't have a 500 m^2 home nor any land. That'd be 3 times the size of our home, and our home is already pretty big for our neighbourhood.

There are a lot of us tech yuppies that either can’t cook or won’t cook. We will continue to order in all our meals.

Of course that depends on the variety remaining. It may not. It’s been 3 weeks and I’m already starting to tire of my local options.

Maybe I might end up learning to cook after all...

It's cheaper and better for you, and you can cook for your own preferences once you understand the basics.

It's a great time to learn!

Not to mention the resulting product is far superior than what is available at 95% of restaurants.

I mean, not really, unless you are comparing to McDonald's.

Even on the coasts, most restaurants focus on salt, sugar, and oil. I find there’s often just no spice used (not just heat).

Also, due to the low margins of the restaurant business, I assume they’re using subpar ingredients.

McDonald's was hard to beat back when they had fried pies. They dropped that menu item though, so now we can beat them.

If you like the technical aspects of "tech", you could learn to love the technical aspects of cooking. You can treat cooking as a chore, an art, or a science. Your choice!

Even if you love cooking as an art, it can still be a chore sometimes. It's hard to deliver art when tired, picky children are screaming.

Just like it's hard to deliver good code when tired, picky managers are screaming.

regarding all the other suggestions to learn, it might also be a really good time to start saving some money.

I don't get why you're being down voted for this. Frankly you'd be helping out your local restaurants that are trying to minimize their red ink.

I want to agree with you, but I think we might both be underestimating the extent to which Americans don't know how to cook food at home. At a certain level of income, I know people who eat every meal out other than maybe breakfast. I can only guess that they're going to be having most meals delivered now.

Some younger googlers have never cooked for themselves in years, so this will be an interesting challenge for them. (Source: 2nd year googler friend)

> "if you're home all day long one of the main spurs for going out to eat is gone, at the end of the day you're no longer too tired to make food"

You clearly don't have children. I need to work from home while also getting primary school children to do their schoolwork and not kill each other.

sorry but I do, although my experience is perhaps clouded by having a spouse who does not need to work from home while I do.

I've worked at home for many years. I also really enjoy cooking, and put a fair amount of effort into it. But that doesn't mean I don't like to go out to eat as well. I'm not going to be doing that for a while (Colorado has shut down all restaurants) but I'm looking forward to when it will be possible again.

Are you kidding me, how many people do you know who can put together a decent meal, let alone a tasty meal. Combined with the fact that people will stress-eat and stress-drink delivery food and liquor sales will experience a big-time boom.

maybe it's because I live in Denmark and my wife's family is Italian, but I guess the answer to how many people I know is essentially everyone I know (even the younger 20 year olds at my work) and the answer to am I kidding you is no.

I admit when I lived in the U.S the answer might have been less but it was probably still "lots of people", I have generally been the worst cook I know and I can still put together about a dozen decent meals.

on edit: but note that I did say the spur left was the tastiness of delivered food so actually I am confused as to are you kidding me based on inability to produce tasty food?

You and I probably move in different circles. I love cooking and am pretty serious about good food, so my bar must be high. But I know less than 10% people who can make good meals.

Quite a few actually. Cooking isn't that difficult.

While cooking isn't that difficult, that biggest thing I think people will run into is just not being equipped. I have known several people that enjoyed eating out all of the time and never spent time equipping the kitchen. Sure, your basic pots and pans, but not measuring cups or spoons, mixing bowls, etc. Forks, spoons, butter knives on hand, but not a decent paring knife or chef's knife. I'm not talking stand mixers and food processors, but basic equipment that makes cooking easier and not frustrating. It's no wonder wedding registries are full of kitchen items.

Ya but you barely need those things for most cooking below a certain level, and in a time where you have no choice, it's okay to be a little frustrated. You can then go buy stuff as necessary.. probably.

I have a tiny kitchen with a single very basic pot and some super shitty baking sheets that I got from a thrift store, IKEA chef/paring knives, a mediocre damaged Henckels from Craigslist, and some mediocre non-stick skillets. All in probably $50. Ya, I might like a ~$120 French or Japanese chef knife, and maybe a nicer pot, but it's absolutely fine. My actual chef friend came by recently and made a killer meal with little trouble.

Absolutely, it takes quite a bit of effort to build out even a small kitchen.

I think it's only in retrospect that it seems that way. Over time, you buy stuff as your needs change and you get a bunch of kitchen stuff. It takes very little energy and money to get some basic cheap gear together

>if you're home all day long one of the main spurs for going out to eat is gone,

Actually, if I'm home all day long, I like to go out to socialize. The normal daily interactions with co-workers/clients/etc is now removed by working from home. While I don't eat out that much, Happy Hour has become a thing for me. Now, I guess I'm going to have to start labeling myself an alcoholic since I've resorted to drinking alone at home.

The only reason I eat out is for the environment and to get me out of the house. I never did understand paying full price for takeout.

I genuinely enjoy cooking, it is what I do with the extra time I would otherwise be spent commuting.

Luckily, lots of people are not like me and cannot cook if their life depended on it. I am hoping they can keep the local restaurants in business!

I like the idea of buying myself gift cards at local restaurants. Its one way to help them.

Well, except there is a new spur right now: empty grocery store shelves.

I wrote my favorite restaurants on social media asking them where I can purchase myself gift cards.

It not a lot, but if enough people do it, it could help them actually reopen.

Here we have full-blown quarantine, so all restaurants, cafes, and bars are closed. Those offering take-outs cintinue to operate. The report yesterday (first day of the quarantine) said "despite empty tables kitchen staff is busy as never before". Of course, far from every dining place offers take-outs.

> far from every dining place offers take-outs.

I suspect this is going to start changing soon. High end takeaways will have to happen where restaurants would fail otherwise.

Not for long. Restaurants won’t be able to make rent to do takeout.

a landlord is not going to find a new tenant for that site, so their best bet is to not charge rent or charge a lesser amount and defer it. that way when things get back to normal he has a tenant who can get back into business a lot quicker otherwise he has to find a new tenant.

Land/property prices have boomed in the UK, usually the tenant is rich and can wait for the profits, years, perhaps decades. This in part is why our high-street is empty but shop rental prices are not deflated seemingly at all; the rent is gravy, they've doubled their investments already.

How about any property left vacant for 1 month gets a windfall tax of 10% the market valuation [this is obviously not a fleshed out proposal] ... that should incentivise landlord's to act to prevent losing tenants.

Landlords will have to adjust rents. This happens in downturns.

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