COVID-19 vaccine push a 'light at the end of the tunnel,' boosting dinner reservations

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After a hard hit from the coronavirus pandemic, the "light at the end of the tunnel" is on its way for the beleaguered restaurant industry.

In a recent survey conducted jointly by OpenTable — which is owned by Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG) — and the nonprofit James Beard Foundation, 54% of diners say they plan to dine out at a restaurant with table service in 2021, at least once a week.

Meanwhile, the percentage of diners that feel eating indoors is a "low to somewhat low risk" for COVID-19 is up a whopping 79% from July 2020, even as a surge in new infections is raising fears of a fourth wave.

"The end is near — it's really encouraging to see," Debby Soo, OpenTable CEO told Yahoo Finance LIVE in an interview last week. "we've gone through a long and hard winter. It's starting to warm up."

The return of indoor dining in many places across the country is coinciding with the start to spring — and with that, warmer weather. That means the dining rebound will appear different, depending "on what city, what state, even what county you're looking at," according to Soo.

"In the U.S. at the state level, we're seeing places like Nevada, and Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas really start rebounding...major cities like San Francisco, New York, LA are still down, but you're seeing those numbers, week- over-week, increase."

Based on OpenTable's records as of March 27th compared to a year prior, seated diners from online, phone, and walk-in reservations in Nevada are up by double-digits in states like Oklahoma and Texas. However, major coastal cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City are down significantly — by more than half in each city.

Soo, however, is optimistic that the COVID-19 vaccine distribution will boost those figures significantly. As new COVID-19 infections in the Empire State jump, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday announced that everyone over the age of 30 would be eligible for a vaccine beginning Tuesday.

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