Vanishing Restaurants, Unequal Spaces: Ethnic and Spatial Disparities in New York City’s (Post-)COVID Restaurant Closings

• In Event: 50259 - Third Places: Beyond the Home and the Workplace

Abstract

This study examines the spatial dimensions of restaurant closings in New York City across the COVID-19 era, with a focus on how restaurant’s ethnic identity interacts with neighborhood’s ethnoracial composition. Using a combination of restaurant inspections, open restaurant applications and American Community Survey, this study employs multilevel logistic models and spatial analysis for autocorrelation and spillover effects. Findings show that anti-Asian sentiments disproportionately affected Asian restaurant closings in predominantly minority neighborhoods during the pandemic, and a residual effect in Asian neighborhoods in post-COVID era. On the other hand, affluence and residential stability of a neighborhood mitigated restaurant closings. Despite shifts in pandemic-related racial discourse, enduring ethnic effect in space and socioeconomic inequalities continued to shape the urban foodscape.

Author

• Qiyao Pan, CUNY-Graduate Center