“They’re trying to maximize all the losses they took in 2020,” Bragdon said.
Some wooden boards that went up last year won’t come down. Doors that closed temporarily at first won’t open again.
“Treasured business establishments that have sort of been family-run and locally operated, we've seen them closed forever,” said Kelsey Erickson Streufert, the Texas Restaurant Association’s Vice President of Advocacy and Government Relations.
The Texas Restaurant Association doesn’t keep a running list of closures, but, based on national data and local surveys, they estimate 11,000 restaurants and bars closed for good this past year.
A year later, the curve health experts asked the public to bend now looks like a rollercoaster with several peaks and troughs because that’s what life has been like this past year.