
More consumers are saving their workday lunch money to burn when they’re off the clock.
The rise of hybrid work has kept many bars’ and restaurants’ lunchtime business from recovering to pre-pandemic levels, according to data the digital payments platform Square released Tuesday.
But while weekday transaction volumes from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. were down 3.3% last year compared with 2019, card taps jumped 4.2% on weekends and 0.3% during weekday happy hours from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The Square data comes as foot traffic rebounds in major U.S. cities’ downtowns far faster on evenings and weekends than during workdays, University of Toronto researchers have found.
These signs point to a new normal for Americans’ post-pandemic leisure…