What Happened? DC Restaurant Activity Suddenly Collapses

Reading over the “Fast Casual Not Immune to Industry Pressures” note this morning via UBS analyst Dennis Geiger, the view is that restaurant demand is uneven, and while casual dining showed resilience with solid results, fast casual players like CAVA have revised outlooks this year and remain cautious on diners, reflecting broader macroeconomic pressures.

But our focus on Geiger’s note is the reservation and diner activity data collected by research firm OpenTable. Because millions of people book tables through OpenTable across the U.S., the data is a high-frequency proxy for restaurant demand and dining trends. 

That leaves us with a state-by-state analysis of the latest OpenTable trends for the first half of August, which show solid restaurant activity across the U.S., but a massive outlier in Washington, D.C. 

The sharp drop in restaurant activity across D.C. last week is puzzling. Maybe the elites in the nation’s capital slipped away for one last vacation before the school year starts, whether to Ocean City, Maryland, Rehoboth Beach, or the mountains of Western Maryland. 

But what if the slowdown wasn’t driven by outbound travel at all – but by something else?

We suspect that President Trump’s deployment of 800 National Guard troops, along with hundreds of federal law enforcement officers, to crack down on years of out-of-control violent crime, homelessness, the drug and overdose crisis, and other signs of decay in a city run by far-left Democrats, may have contributed to the decline in restaurant activity.

NOW: The National Guard presence in DC is growing

A contingent is now present near the Lincoln Memorial

Over 1,000 more troops are on the way, being sent by several governors

DC WILL be safe again! pic.twitter.com/Gs3T5frbvD

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 17, 2025

Or maybe those DOGE-driven layoffs are finally starting to bite… definitely something to keep an eye on.