Tampa leads cities in demand for restaurant reservations
May 12, 2020 - Tampa residents were more eager than most to get back to dining in at local restaurants after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched the first phase of a plan to lift restrictions imposed in the wake of Covid-19. Dining reservations at Tampa restaurants spiked on May 4, the first day restaurants were allowed to partially re-open, and have since dramatically outpaced restaurants in major cities in Florida, Georgia and Texas, according to a new report from the Tampa Bay Partnership. The organization analyzed data from Open Table, a restaurant reservation service, and found that in four days reservations at Tampa restaurants jumped by 20 percent. The Open Table data only includes restaurants in Tampa but the Partnership said it is a proxy for the entire region.