Impacts of COVID-19 on the U.S. restaurant industry from the global perspective

The current study explores the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. restaurant industry in terms of its stock performance, and further incorporates a global perspective into this examination by testing both the main and moderating effects of non-U.S. COVID-19 and also the moderating effect of the internationalization strategy of the U.S. restaurant industry. Findings of this study confirm that U.S. COVID-19 had a negative influence on U.S. restaurant firms’ stock returns while non-U.S. COVID-19 had a positive impact. Further, the non-U.S. COVID-19 had a positive moderating effect on the relationship between U.S. COVID-19 and restaurant firms’ stock returns. Unexpectedly, the study finds that U.S. restaurant firms’ internationalization strategy does not moderate the negative impact of U.S. COVID-19 on restaurants’ stock performance. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.