The hospitality "crisis” may be a measurement error

This week's numbers are oddly reassuring - net hospitality business formations are still positive and failures haven't spiked the way the headlines suggest. So why does the sector feel like the ground is shifting?

The answer isn't in the numbers. It's in the shape of the industry itself.

I borrow an idea from mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who once asked how long the coastline of Britain is. The answer, which depends on your ruler, explains something strange happening in eating out right now: brands shedding dining rooms while multiplying their points of contact with customers, from supermarket kiosks to delivery-only kitchens. YO! is the case in point with fifty restaurants and five hundred kiosks.

So is the sector shrinking, or just changing shape? And at what point does a restaurant brand without restaurants stop being a restaurant brand at all?

Read my full analysis, plus this week's industry news.