Decreased Value

Journalists trying to figure out why restaurants are having troubles and talking to someone who's more politician than economist.

Everything boils down to supply and demand.

In the US there is an abundant supply of restaurants.  Lots of choices.

Lots of supply.

Abundant supply should lead to lower prices, yet prices are going up.

Prices went up from many factors, but the biggest ones were artificially induced.  Increasing minimum wage on top of the stupidity of the CDC are still moving through the industry.

The prices went up more than the wages of the customers.

That reduced demand...

Reduced demand and high supply SHOULD cause prices to fall.

But the restaurants can't reduce labor costs very far legally.  They have no control of the costs of food, and the government has that market thoroughly muddied from vast culls to prevent the spread of disease... which might not even be effective.

Labor costs are up.  Food costs are up.  Real estate is up, and that always makes rent go up (most franchisees don't own the land their custom building sits on).

So, prices cannot go down without going negative on the balance sheet.

There's also a threshhold price on going out.  A customer might happily pay $25 a plate but not $25.01.  Prices jumped a lot farther than a penny per plate.

Inelastic costs, elastic demand in a high supply/low demand environment...  Means places go out of business.