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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

This is terrible for sure, but it's worth remembering that 60% of all restaurants close within their first year of operation and 80% within 5 years. The restaurant industry in a city like New York is incredibly cut-throat.

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There is a subtle (perhaps unintentional) sleight of hand here.

60% of all new restaurants close on the first year. That is very different than half of *all restaurants, even those that have been open for decades, closing in a single year.

Sure, but the same distinction is missing from the city's report. Which half of the city's restaurants are going to close permanently because of covid? Likely those that were on the edge of failure rather than well-established ones.

So McDonalds, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts, Joe's Pizza, and 711 get to stay open yay

You are right that the 60% of restaurants that will fail are likely the ones that were on the edge anyway, however, this is a different distinction.

I think the more important distinction is that this is 60% of ALL restaurants, not 60% of the 10% of new restaurants (or 6% of restaurants).

(I made up the 10%, but I'm sure it is small.)

It's not about asking "which half". It's that the numbers cannot be compared. If 90% percent of restaurants stay open forever, 60% of new restaurants could close in their 1st year but only 6% of existing restaurants would close. If we say 50% of existing restaurants will close due to covid, comparing that to 60% makes no sense, it needs to be compared to 6%.

observationally, this doesn't seem to be the case. In NYC, the way it looks is that restaurants that were doing a brisk delivery business before the pandemic are still with us and a lot of great restaurants that were packed with in-person diners are gone. There are tons of exceptions. Source: Brooklyn.

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