U.S. restaurants starved for business

[CARLHAYDEN]

The number of restaurants operating nationwide dropped this year for the first time in more than a decade, a survey shows, with California accounting for almost a third of the losses.

August 20, 2010|By Sharon Bernstein, Los Angeles Times

With consumers and businesses keeping a lid on expenses, more and more small and mid-size restaurants are throwing in their dish towels and closing up

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2010/aug/20/business/la-fi-0821-restaurants-closing-20100821

[Torie]

Yes, unless cheap fast food places, most sit down restaurants are quite empty, even for breakfast on weekends, and even in my zip code. Good for me, but bad of course. One need not make reservations anymore.

[opebo]

Yes, unless cheap fast food places, most sit down restaurants are quite empty, even for breakfast on weekends, and even in my zip code. Good for me, but bad of course. One need not make reservations anymore.

Also without 'turnover' the food is more likely to be rotten and make you sick.  My mother was always fearful of eating in very dead places. (of course realistically nowadays everything is just frozen/nuked garbage).