Texas is cautiously coming back from the shutdown. Texans seem to be evolving from the lockdown.
Restaurants reopened since May 1 are running at reduced capacity. So far only a third of the state’s sit-down dining has returned according to OpenTable.
Restaurants transactions- takeout and delivery have tripled since late March. But they are down 50% from before the pandemic as note by Shift4, a payments processor.
A chain of high-end eateries in Houston called Clark Cooper Concepts has one of its branches remained closed as the staff doesn’t want to risk exposure and would collect unemployment for now. This has been stated by Grant Cooper, one of the partners of the group. Even when customers venture out, they will encounter a completely different atmosphere than before, he said.
According to foot traffic data on more than 30 standalone locations monitored by SafeGraph, which is an analytics firm tracking mobile phones, Supercuts has witnessed visit surge past where they were a year ago.
Traffic to Walmart, is also above 2019- it has remained open since it’s deemed an essential retailer for its grocery.
But it isn’t as if people aren’t indulging. Trips to Starbucks and Baskin-Robbins are quite back to normal, according to SafeGraph.
But, malls all over the state struggle to lure customers. Shift4 mentions that hotel transactions, including bookings, have only rebounded 37% since hitting a low on March 22.
Airports are largely empty. Dallas Fort Worth International is the second largest airport in the country, whose scheduled daily departures are averaging about 500. This is roughly half the rate from February, as per tracking website Flightradar24.
Offices have the choice to reopen, but haven’t, instead they’ve preferred to keep staff working from home. There are regional divides in behavior even in the same city, owing to the state’s diversity.
In Dallas, largely white and affluent, residents are leaving their homes more than a month ago, according to SafeGraph data.
Black communities south of the city, have been hit hard by the virus, have witnessed reduced mobility since the reopening. Austin, a politically- liberal enclave, has lower levels of movement and business activity. In Midland, in the state’s conservation oil-producing Permian Basin, a large shopping center appears to already coming back to normal levels of visitors as mentioned by SafeGraph data.