BOSTON -- Among the businesses hardest hit by new public health restrictions, restaurants make up a significant portion of the state and national economies and a major component of the daily and weekly routines of scores of people, from workers to tourists.
In normal circumstances, the industry accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs in Massachusetts and millions nationally, and more than half of the money spent on food throughout the country is for food away from home.
The social distancing measures put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic, aimed at limiting the number of people who become infected with COVID-19 and the number who will die from it, have rattled that dynamic, with many restaurant and food service employees now out of work and most people confined to their homes for meals and other activities, a dynamic that is putting extra pressure on supermarkets.
Food spending by consumers, business and government entities in the U.S. totaled $1.71 trillion in 2018, with food away-from-home representing 54.4 percent of that total, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's economic research service. That percentage is up from 50.1 percent in 2009.
The USDA reported this month that more Americans buy non-grocery food -- such as from a restaurant or school cafeteria -- than they did a decade ago. The share of Americans who purchased non-grocery food rose from 11.3 percent in the period from 2004 to 2007 to 13.5 percent in the period from 2014 to 2017.
While grocery stores are considered essential businesses and remain open -- though with capacity limits, increased sanitation and other precautions in place -- restaurants in Massachusetts have been unable to serve customers on-premises for nearly a month, or since March 17. Takeout and delivery orders are still allowed.
A recent poll conducted by the MassINC Polling Group for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts found that 53 percent of respondents were ordering less takeout food than before the coronavirus crisis began, with 30 percent ordering the same amount and 15 percent ordering more.
An early version of the emergency order had restaurants shuttered through April 4, but Gov. Charlie Baker has since extended the closure of non-essential businesses until early May.
There are, according to the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, 15,797 "eating and drinking place locations" in Massachusetts, and 349,300 restaurant and food service jobs as of 2016, accounting for 10 percent of employment in the state.
Across the U.S., 15.3 million people were employed in the restaurant industry in 2019, according to the National Restaurant Association, which projected a total $863 billion in sales last year.
Four in ten consumers characterize restaurants as an essential part of their lifestyle, according to the national association's fact sheet.
The National Restaurant Association has launched a survey to gauge the COVID-19 pandemic's economic impacts across the industry.
"In just the first three weeks of the shutdowns to our industry, three million jobs have been lost, and fifteen percent of America's restaurants have permanently closed or are likely to in the next two weeks," the association wrote.