47% of people will visit restaurants 'as soon as they reopen:' Piper Sandler

States across the U.S. are beginning to reopen parts of their economies, and a surprising number of consumers are willing to visit restaurants as soon as they reopen, according to a new survey by Piper Sandler. Yahoo Finance’s Heidi Chung joins Zack Guzman to discuss.

Video Transcript

ZACH GUZMAN: An interesting new survey is out from Piper Sandler looking at the way that Americans plan on reoccupying restaurants as they open up here. And the interesting number-- about half of Americans are preparing to go back to their age old favorites and eating food that is not cooked by a family member-- which at this point, you might be getting tired of. For more on that, I want to check in with Yahoo Finance's Heidi Chung, who has more on that report. Heidi.

HEIDI CHUNG: Hey Zach. Yeah, so pretty encouraging numbers, at least on the surface, when we take a look here. But Piper Sandler out with its part two of its COVID-19 consumer survey-- now, the firm conducted this survey online between May 11th and May 12th and gathered responses from roughly 420 respondents. The average age of survey participants was about 44 and the average household income was about $78,000. 90% of the respondents were practicing shelter-in-place orders at the time of the survey.

But according to this survey, the results say that approximately 47% of people are likely to go to restaurants as soon as they reopen. Now, that does sound like a pretty decent number, but it's actually down from 60% of participants saying that they would in April's survey. And a quick disclaimer here, Zach-- Piper's models are synced to a July opening. Also asked, quote, "how likely are you to go to a restaurant to eat within the next two weeks" with 1 being very unlikely and 10 being very likely. The average response yielded about a 4.1 out of 10. Then that's up from 3.8 in April.

I also want to bring to your attention that, according to the NPD Group, US restaurant chain transactions continued to improve for the fourth consecutive week in the week ending May 10th, as more states look to reopen their economies and thus restaurants also started to reopen the dining rooms of their stores. But the market research firm reporting that the total restaurant customer transactions were down 23% compared to a decline of 26% in the prior week, so the improvements there continuing throughout the weeks. 63% of respondents saying that they will be more sensitive to eating in a crowded restaurant, which is up from actually 62% in the prior survey period in April. And approximately 50% of respondents are currently visiting restaurants and using either their drive-thru or pickup options. Zach.

ZACH GUZMAN: Yeah, it is interesting to see in that same survey the responses from Americans also saying that they plan on cooking meals at home even after the coronavirus disruption is back down to normal, so potentially lingering there. Though they might be interested in finally getting back to a favorite restaurant, still potentially going to be cooking at home as well. Unless they're eating out and eating double, I don't think that those things can move in the same direction. But Heidi Chung bringing us the latest on the restaurant front. Always appreciate that.