My son in law and daughter, both accomplished Chicago area chefs, are discussing private meals for select customers going forward. Seems like a very good model.
Agreed; I suspect there’s a highly inelastic base of demand that will be able to support such chefs, as long as the quality is there
Why would you think demand will be inelastic? Are we talking about a private meal at one’s own house, or in some private portion of an establishment? If in a home, the added labor cost for a dinner for four would make for a quite expensive meal. It’s a tough model, especially if the business dining side falls out, and one is looking predominantly at Fri/Sat/Sun for private meals. There will definitely be a big uptick in demand for private chef meals. But there will be just as big an uptick in the number of chefs trying to do it.
I was talking to a couple of restaurant people over the last week. They both think that they’ll continue to concentrate on more take-out, and things like meal-kits, even from places that did not do so previously. But most people are hoping for an occupancy guideline that allows 50% of the past. There’s talk about 25% occupancy and that is virtually impossible almost all restaurants. There would have to be a significant reduction in rent for a lot of spaces to make anything less than 50% work.
It’s only a hunch, but I think especially in the Bay Area/NY there will be people willing to pay 2-3x existing prices just to have the opportunity to experience certain restaurants again. This is only for a small subset of restaurants at the very high-end though