Downtown restaurants have been battling losing the lunch hour crowd since the pandemic and the start of remote and hybrid work, but it appears as though they are making it up with well-attended happy hours.
Data from payment technology firm Square show that although many office workers continue to prefer remote and hybrid work schedules, end-of-day happy hour remains a priority.
Restaurant and bar traffic between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. (the happy hour time slot) has remained resilient and is slightly above pre-pandemic levels when comparing 2019 to 2023.
The same cannot be said for weekday lunch traffic, which is down across all major US cities and remains below pre-pandemic levels.