The National Restaurant Association released a report Tuesday showing that adults have stopped going to restaurants as the Delta Variant spreads. Restaurant sales from 2020 should rise nearly 20% to $789 billion in 2021, but sales will remain lower than $864 billion in 2019. As the daily average of COVID cases rises, events are canceled, and tourism drops, restaurants could be hit hard once again. Most notably, restaurants like McDonald’s ($MCD@US), Taco Bell ($YUM@US), and KFC ($YUM@US) are pre-emptively closing dining rooms.
