Considering how much food I have in the refrigerator and pantry, it will be quite a while before we go out to a restaurant. Since I have the time, I prefer to cook, but I have been busy lately with sewing projects, but I can take my time with those and stop to cook as needed. I barely like going grocery shopping at this point, and so I am definitely avoiding restaurants until I feel it is safe, but I don't know when that will be. It is not something I miss or crave.

We mostly go to restaurants only when we are traveling, and that is on hold for now.

Out? No.

They're nowhere near opening here, but I'm not going anyway. The trustworthy ones, not the lightweights nor bloviators, have clearly said that if you're in danger of a bad reaction to the virus, just stay home. I wish the restaurants well, and even more, I wish the workers paychecks and tips. I'll order in, but there's no way I'm going out until this is over, if it ever is.

Nope nope nope. Not going to be in someone else's dining room for quite some time. My county's closed for the next month at least, but even then I'm not feeling it. Love to the restaurateurs, but I have no interest in being part of the second or third waves of coronavirus transmission if I can at all help it. I'm staying home, saving lives for the foreseeable future

Thé same here. I wouldn't enjoy a single bite.

I'm not even getting take out, so it will be a long time before I go out to a restaurant. Like Linda, what I miss most is sharing a meal, either at home, my friends' homes or at a restaurant. But I'm still alive and will be trying to keep it that way.

When there's a vaccine. I do miss having a friend here for dinner, or the parties with friends. But none of us are taking those kind of chances.

With only a small amount of their regular seating available when they do finally open, I imagine it will be reservations only seating. We ordered a pizza yesterday for the first time getting any take-out since two month ago when everything was shut down. We will go out to eat once things get back to normal. With a husband that works out in the public and I see no signs of anyone at his place of employment getting sick, I find it hard to be in a panic though. Still don't want to deal with limited seating to go out to eat.

Opening here (CT) 5/20, outside dining only. Must maintain 6 feet distance between tables, paper menus or menu on white boards, customers and servers must wear masks except to eat, lots more. We won’t be going out to dinner anytime soon, not that desperate. Have had take out twice in 2 months, it was a treat not to have to cook. Many restaurants must now get permits for outside dining and then another issue is that many of them don’t have the available space to offer this type of dining. I certainly don’t want to eat near the street or in a parking lot

We are still carry-out only here, but I haven't even been doing that. I didn't eat out that often anyway and don't plan on starting back anytime soon.

Not any time soon!! We are nowhere close to having restaurants open for business nor do I care to go through the testing procedures required to be admitted. I DO look forward to the day when we can gather in small family units to enjoy a meal together, though.

In the meantime, I am happy doing my own cooking, trading meals with my sister every now and again or doing the occasional take-out.

When there is a vaccine and all our population has been immunized, then, only then, will I go out anywhere. I plan to be in my home for at least the next 8 months. I am grateful to the first respondents but please - let's thank the scientists and lab techs who are working so diligently - as if our lives depended on them - which we do.

We very rarely ate at restaurants pre-Covid. Usually only at BBQ joints. I'll probably get take out Chinese or pizza when they bring us back to work but that won't be until July at the earliest.

We just butchered a couple of our cattle herd so now I have over 350 lbs. of prime beef in the freezer. Ruth's Chris has nothing I need!

Here the Governor's Order expires May 28, but I expect she will extend it, which she should.

We almost never go out to eat anyway, we have few choices here and I don't enjoy it anyway, so I'm in no rush. I have ordered take out a couple of times, trying to do my bit for local restaurants, and always leave a big tip for the workers, but I'm thinking months before I'd think of going out.

I do miss meals with my family, though, and with one daughter being married to a police officer and the other working as a CNA in a nursing home, we tend to be extremely careful. The Grandkids are going to help me place flags in the Township Cemetery next Friday. I don't think there will be a Memorial Day Service, but the veterans will still get their flags, as they should.

Annie

Local news said that Palm Springs is considering closing parts of Indian Canyon Drive to turn it into a pedestrian mall so that restaurants can have more space for outdoor dining. It is the main street going through downtown Palm Springs, and so some major changes would have to be made for this to happen. Because traffic at Palm Springs airport is down more than 50%, and tourist visits are down by 90% (I think), the economy here has taken a major dive. Restaurants here depend very much on tourists, and the tourist season is coming to a close for now. June through October are normally the slowest months.

I think it will be a while before any of this happens, and I think it would probably take a year or so - or at least six months.

It will be a while. Miles of streets are closed for pedestrian traffic in the city. Already in place for years are open plazas for dining outside. Not packed together tables like one would think. We never ate out much before since work provided so much and events always were catered.

My only fantasy meal would be seaside or riverside with a crab or lobster boil or a most excellent seafood chowder.

Like this experimental outdoor dining in Amsterdam.

Article link, HERE

Will be quite awhile before that happens here in CA. We went out to eat 2- 3 times a week prior to all this but have been fine at home. Cooking has always been fun for me.

I think it will be a long while for me. My county is part of the cluster in NY that's beginning their opening today. Cuomo is proceeding with great caution and I am so glad.

With all the covid-19 problems, one of the local pizzerias had an employee w/ Hepatitis A, so 1100 customers/others had to get a shot!

We're pretty much wide open here. DH says more people wearing masks, but still not all. Local buffet style restaurant is packed daily. Open for tourists with safety recommendations, but I'm suspect about that. We never really ate out, though a break from cooking sounds nice. But no. Not eating out, even take-out, until after a vaccine. We'll be staying "safe" for a very long time.

A buffet?? And without masks required? That is just a breeding ground for all manner of germs, not to mention the most highly infectious disease we have ever encountered in modern times.

A new class of "suicide" or "death trap" restaurants....coming soon to your locale!!

Not until we have more reliable quick 5 minute home/work testing and well thought out distancing. Too many risk takers not being responsible.

Gorgeous weather now and dining on my deck. That is just fine for now.

We need a much better face shield/mask design. No one wants to live in a bubble but that may be the only way. Something extremely lightweight. Even a small fanny pack air exchange cooling filter attached.

Those that spent weeks in the hospital and survived alone all those weeks had no idea what the caregiver dr's and nurses looked like. Imagine what the cost is for those weeks. Why risk it.

A personal mask can be sterilized. A tight seal with dragon skin surround. (A food safe/skin-safe silicone and very flexible.) This would be very lightweight. Like the annoying packaging that Amazon stuff comes in. Scissors can barely cut that plastic. If it is lightweight and comfortable, it will not be fussed with or off and on too often. Faces and expressions are not hidden by a ill-fitting fabric mask like most are wearing now.

I pinched this photo off the web. Not exactly what I mean, but it is a start.

We have been in so many conference calls with work and will not go back without OSHA approved seriously tested protective gear similar to this and will manufacture our own masks if need be. Talk is not starting back to work until September.

I don't us see going out for a very long time. Not until there is a Covid vaccination and no more cases. We never went out much anyway, only on special occasions. I do miss going to our favorite Greek and Chìnese restaurants.

With only a small amount of their regular seating available when they do finally open, I imagine it will be reservations only seating.

Reservations? I have reservations all right. And I will until there's a vaccine.

Used to love going out to eat once a week. Can't imagine that being an enjoyable experience again. Not for a very long time.

Yup, buffet style, many without masks. No order, just a recommendation for masks. Faulty tests, the ability to get covid-19 just after a test if not being safe, it all appalls me. Our Gov bought masks to give out at over a million $. Some posted photos of them. Made out of sock material, you could see through them, big weave. Sure, c'mon to TN, shop our discount malls, enjoy the auditorium music shows... And bring your covid-19 with you, too. Or just take some home with you. Appalling.

Not a chance in hell I will be in a restaurant for sometime to come.I just could not relax enough to enjoy the meal . Not just the worry of the virus but the general ambiance...no thanks. I'm not as concerned about take out......but haven't done that either.

Souplantation/Fresh Tomatoes closed down completely in March. They're the original salad bar restaurant from the 1980's, but nearly 100 stores, and much loved by many. They realized they'd never be able to reopen until there's no contagion.

Some people, at least, have sense. I feel bad for the thousands of employees who've lost their jobs, but if I were one of them, I'd rather have the definitive answer and look for a new job (or retraining) than try hanging on expecting to go back to work. There are a lot of jobs, in the state, needing to be filled, for which the basic skill set is similar to food service (ability to work on your feet/walking, good attitude, good public interaction) and no prior training in the field.

not me. I seldom eat out anyway, it's probably been 2 yrs! I might go down the road a bit, pick up a Mexican meal and take to my sister's. we can split it. 1 lunch feeds me for about 4 meals. we'll sit on her patio at a distance. we can eat and chat. haven't had a good chat since January.

I am staying put. Good thing I like to cook. I do wish I could get some fresh ingredients for Asian & SE Asian food —- lime leaves, Thai basil, shallot, lemongrass, sprouts, green papaya, .... I don’t even know if the only 10 mi away SE Asian market is still in business. Would I risk shopping in a small space? Maybe w my N95, wrap around safety glasses, hat and a bunch of exact change.

I just ordered some local organic grass-fed beef and a bit of chicken from the same place. I don’t want to support Big Meat where workers are imperiled even more w SARS-CoV-2.

We’ve been avoiding our pre-Covid groc store because they don’t insist on masks. I have had to make exceptions for the $6.95/Lb Live Orange lobsters. (I wonder if the lobstermen still support him — between trade wars and Covid-19, they must be hurting. None of the lobster goes to waste. I know how to get every good shred, and compost the rest.

We’ve been shopping at a very pricy country market where only 2 - 3 people with masks and no bag of their own are allowed in. Distances and masks. I’m not sure they’ll even let one of their own clerks back inside should they go out to carry a 25 Lb. bag of flour to a patron’s car. I may have to $top $hopping there.

I have no plans to dine at a restaurant until there is a well-tested, sure fire vaccine maybe around 2022. If an already proven corrupt consortium grabs our government with or without foreign help for another go, it will be at least 2026 before I dine out.

ETA: I hope I’ll still have my teeth because I won’t be going to my dentist either.

We don't eat out a lot anyway with the exception of breakfast on a weekend or the sports pub for wings and beer every so often. I do miss that. I'm hesitant about going into a place to eat and probably won't until the stats show that it's reasonably safe. But NO WAY any kind of buffet-style.

There is no restaurant in this town with ambience so great that I feel compelled to park my butt in it for a meal. DH and I also find that many restaurants are very loud and it's hard to carry on a conversation. Also, in FL, you cannot escape te A/C and I have read that is a good way to get COVID. We were never big restaurant people to begin with and so we are in no rush to get back to one. Except sushi - but we can get take-out if we need to.

Dh and I are having a great time picking out recipes and making them so we're set.

I never never gone out to restaurants or quick food places or ordered in very much. No plans whatsoever to do so during this day and age.

We used to enjoy dining out at least once a week in a fancier place and casually on top of that. We had not had takeout until earlier this week, when we ordered Neapolitan pizza from the restaurant a few blocks away, who starts the dough process three days in advance and maintains relationships with local farmers, in addition to their own garden. With the special oven and time and skill, it's not something easily recreated at home. We'll probably start to do this more. I have no issues sourcing ingredients but sometimes, its far less hassle or simple better to do takeout (and I get cooking fatigue while working from home during the week). We've not discussed when we would want to return to dining out, even outside with proper spacing or those little bubbles shown above in Amsterdam.

The restaurants here could always stay open for takeout during the shutdown, although some closed and some have closed permanently. We're down to very low per capita infection and hospital rate, and testing is available to anyone. Most of the north state counties here in California have gotten permission to proceed through the next phase of reopening. That includes restaurants at reduced capacity. One of those is South Lake Tahoe; across the border, Nevada has already opened much already, and that may also include casinos. The residents are a bit fearful of a wave of people coming into town.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. While I don’t eat out much, I really value living in an area with a lot of restaurants just a short stroll away, and I do have my favorites even if I’m only at some of them every couple months. So I want to support their recovery.

In Portland, restaurants and food culture is a important part of the city’s identity. So there’s been a lot of coverage of the industry’s plight. About half the restaurants have been offering takeout during the shutdown, while the others (usually the higher-end places) have been totally closed.

Some high-profile, high-end places have already permanently closed, in part because they can’t do takeout and trying to operate at 50% capacity will lose so much money that, as one chef said, he’d be bankrupt in no time. I’m afraid many others will follow, because no-one expects restaurants to be able to operate at full capacity for the rest of this year and likely longer. But some have large enough dining rooms or outdoor seating to operate, and the building owners are realizing that getting only a fraction of normal rent is better than a vacant spot for the next couple years.

The restaurant in the ground floor of my office building (“Clark Lewis”) is important to me, as a place to take clients, so I will start going there for a weekly lunch (sans clients) as soon as they reopen - unless they are crowded, in which case I’ll let others support their recovery :-). They have a large, long space, with rollup doors the whole length, and they are arranging tables to be far from each other and right by the open rollup doors - practically al fresco dining. They will also build a patio dining area in part of their parking area. I think they’ll do well, as spacious open-air dining is going to be in high demand - until September :-)

My local Cuban restaurant (“Pambiche”) is tiny with tables jammed close, but also has outside seating. I’ll go there if I can sit outside. Otherwise, I’ll do takeout. They’ve been totally closed this whole time; the owner also owns the building, thank goodness.

I don’t plan to dine in my local dumpling house (“Chins Kitchen”) but will continue doing takeout. My other go-to dumpling house (“Master Kongs”) may already be gone for good, I’m not sure. My local sushi place (“Bluefin Sushi”) might be okay if I can go when it’s pretty quiet, and sit by myself at the bar or a table in the corner - which is how I like to go there anyway.

The other Asian places I go to (“HK Cafe”, “Ocean City”, “Pure Spice”) are dim sum houses, and that’s going to remain a takeout thing for me - no way I’m going to spend an hour in a room jam packed with diners calling out to circulating cart ladies.

A couple pubs I frequent (“Laurelthirst”, “Moon And Six Pence”, “Migration Brewing”) will see me again as soon as they’re open. A good pub always has enough space for solitary imbibing, and some of these have outdoor seating. Anyway it doesn’t take long to down a pint. Their business will come back pretty quickly, I’d say. Granted their customers include plenty of middle aged and older persons, but there are enough 20-something customers (unconcerned and thirsty) to kickstart their restart.

My favorite ramen place near my office (“Noranenko”) has closed permanently, a casualty of Covid. This leaves only a handful of lunch places by my office, and I’ll get takeout from them as soon as they reopen. All but one have been completely closed - if no-one is working in the area, there’s no lunch biz.

I suspect the typical business district worker drone lunch market is going to be permanently shrunken, as “working from home” is proving efficient and popular with employees and managements. My office is in a sort of industrial-creative-digital area, a pretty hip but still-affordable area to locate an office. Apple is (or was? I’d guess they still will) going to take over an entire new building a few blocks from me. Since we were growing well, I’m hopeful we at least maintain now, and don’t become a “lunch desert”.

TL-DR: I plan to “eat out” for dinner about 2x week and do takeout another 1-2X week once the “reopening” starts. This will be about a 500% increase in my dining out frequency :-)

Barely ever ate restaurant food before this - only when family's in town, so I don't miss it at all. Like others have said, cooking and sharing meals with family/friends is what I miss.

Restaurants and bars are open around here, and I see folks at outside tables and waiting in lines, but no distancing or masks that I noticed, which is very concerning to me.

So, not anytime soon, if ever.

Something that's a big concern in horizontal locales, like where I live, is not being discussed! That's restrooms. Any restaurant with sit down dining is normally required to have restrooms for customers. In a horizontal locale, you can't just nip home for the facilities. Are people going to not cough in the restroom? Not touch bits of themselves? Public restrooms are iffy anyway, though, here, restaurants are better, but unless there's an attendant cleaning after every use, like the olden days...um...just no. One of the first things they did at the public parks and beaches is close the restrooms (which are always grotty). I wish they'd at least discuss what's being done now that public urination is less of a public health issue than using the proper facilities!

We too have only brought in food twice during the shut down. I miss some of my faves, but I won't sit in a restaurant w/o some major precautions. I know our dining landscape is going to be altered in ways we never imagined, but for now, not dining out. ETA that pre Covid I ate out 3-5 times a week (counting lunches).

we will continue to order the occasional carry out.

Have to support the peeps we want o survive ... especially in a town with limited choices.

I was really torqued when a local restaurant that is RARELY open [3 days a week for 6 hours] got a 25k stimulus check. They would never pull in 25k in two months ...

and of course the visitor season is pretty much wiped out this year

I rarely dined in restaurants before the pandemic, so it's not something I've missed.

I do have family members who like the occasional take-out, and eating in restaurants used to be part of their socializing with friends. I have gently suggested they support locally owned, independent restaurants, rather than chain restaurants. I just think they need the initial support coming out of the gate.

Depends. I usually don't like take out because it's cold by the time I get it home. So I'll might be eating it driving or sitting in the parking lot, or if pizza, it is good re-heated at home (DO NOT TELL ME COLD PIZZA IS ANY GOOD - IT ISN'T). I did do a ramen dish from a Connecticut restaurant that I took home here to MA last fall, and ate that and it was great. Because they packaged it up right for re-heating at home five hours later.

And Indian food is extremely take-out-able - but there are no Indian eateries within my current driving range.

Okay, there have been times I haven't finished my meal pre-COVID, and took it home to re-heat later. But this is always going to depend on the item in question.

For the first time since we were locked down, I took a breakfast sandwich out from a small struggling restaurant that had just opened up late 2019. I chose a breakfast sandwich because I COULD eat it while driving.

I probably wouldn't have done even that, but the current reported COVID cases for that town are less than five, and there are currently zero in my town. This doesn't mean we are lucky, necessarily - but if on a rare occasion I can support a local eatery - perhaps I should.

PS: McDonalds isn't something I'd ever consider other than for their restrooms (not likely now) or their coffee. Fast food was never much my thing, despite a certain interest in a few Panera's items.

____

Eating in: will depend on the set-up, and the rate of Coronavirus in the broad neighborhood. Currently relatively low where I am, but I'm 66 and I remember a personal bad flu episode, and I am not interested in playing the Vegas dice.

Artemis, I'm not trying to dissuade you or argue with you, but among the people I know, "cold" pizza means cold out of the fridge the next morning, and whether that's good or not depends on the pizza. Pan (Sicilian?) with a superthick crust generally isn't good cold. People too lazy to heat it up tend to gnaw the toppings, and maybe top layer of crust off and leave most of the bread. Thin crisp pizza is often limp out of the fridge, and fall apart, but if it holds together, and you're happy with foldable, can be okay. "Regular" crust pizza, with the right amount of toppings, not over sauced or badly congealed, can be divine out of the fridge. Sometimes more flavorful than when hot. Many fans of that kind of pizza, cold, here.

Pizza cold in the box from travel is gross, and if it went through the colding in the box, it may never perk up on rewarming as well as leftover pizza from the fridge does, because it's already gotten to that congealed thing.

I miss going out. It's been a lot less even before all this, but for a long time, most of my work meetings were over meals out. People are a lot more patient if they want to be there to eat a good meal, and the conviviality helps create understanding rather than rancor. But even just for the occasional social meal, it's nice going out, meeting random people, running into neighbors and friends. Of course, before now, we had a great many good places, with excellent health department inspection cards posted in the window.