Restaurants have always been a high-turnover business, but according to industry experts, the pandemic changed everything.
“You see a little more types of restaurants where it’s, you order yourself or maybe use a kiosk or, you know, you go through a line, that’s called fast casual,” President and CEO of the Ohio Restaurant and Hospitality Alliance, John Barker said. “It’s just harder to run a restaurant today because the costs are so high.”
Barker said 2020 saw the highest rate of closures in modern history. “It stayed negative all the way until the first quarter of this year, in the first quarter of 2023, we saw the openings exceed the closures.”
According to Barker, the restaurant industry is on the cusp of a trillion-dollar industry in the United States in 2024.
Nics81 Digital Media Services LLC The owner of The Gilmore Restaurant , Dave Gilmore, wants a piece of that pie. The high-end restaurant opened in November 2023 and is located on the first floor of the Ariel Broadway Hotel in downtown Lorain.