The optimism that Americans felt in June about dining out in restaurants has largely disappeared, replaced by a growing aversion to eating out amid rising coronavirus cases and renewed closures.
According to ongoing CivicScience tracking data, the first full week in June saw 4 in 10 Americans saying they’d be ready to eat out within a month. Meanwhile, only 27% of U.S. adults at that time said they would wait 6 months or more for their next meal in a restaurant.
Since that point, though, the story has changed dramatically. Now, just 31% say they’d be ready to eat out now or within a month, while 41% say they won’t be ready for at least 6 months.
The proportion of those who estimate they’d be ready to eat out in 2 to 5 months has dwindled steadily from late April to early July, from 52% to 29%. This suggests that adults who may have been waiting to see how the pandemic played out are now making decisions one way or the other — whether they will eat at home for the rest of 2020, or go ahead and venture out for dinner.
