Full-Service Restaurants in Saudi Arabia

2020 IMPACT

Full-service restaurants hit the hardest by COVID-19 as restaurants across the Kingdom close their doors

In 2020, as a result of the extending period of national lockdown lasting from March to June, COVID-19 had a distinctly negative impact on full-service restaurants. During the national lockdown period, and to a certain extent beyond the specific periods of lockdown, consumers switched to working and studying at home, curfews were put in place, and non-essential retail outlets, including consumer foodservice outlets, closed their doors to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Saudi Arabia.

Chained full-service restaurants fall behind as consumers cook local favourites at home

On the whole, chained full-service restaurants largely performed worst that independent full-service restaurants in 2020. Of all the subcategories in full-service restaurants, though, amongst the worst performing were chained Asian full-service restaurants and middle Eastern full-service restaurants.

Category suffers from reliance on eat-in sales during COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, there was a slight shift in the way consumers purchase and consume products from retailers in this category, although the shift was much less noticeable than in other categories such as limited-service restaurants. Eat-in sales continued to dominate the category over all, with only a slight reduction in share, whereas takeaway and home delivery sales only recorded a moderate increase in foodservice value terms, growing from an extremely low base.

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