America's restaurant apocalypse has been greatly exaggerated

Now if they can get people to come back to work...
A year ago experts predicted that one-third of the restaurants in America might close in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Chef and activist Tom Colicchio said the number of casualties could go as high as 75%.

New data from the National Restaurant Association, a Washington-based industry group, found that 90,000 restaurants across the U.S. have closed permanently or long-term. That's less than 14% of the country's restaurants. It's lower than the 110,000 figure reported by the association in December, when the executive vice president for public affairs, Sean Kennedy, described the industry's status as "an economic free fall."
While that's still disastrous compared with the 50,000 restaurants that shutter in a typical year, the most dire scenarios were averted thanks to such initiatives as government loans like the Paycheck Protection Program and changes in local restrictions.