While many independent restaurants have reopened, profitable operations are very elusive. Industry experts calculate that a typical restaurant needs to be allowed to use 75% of their seating capacity to break even. Under current conditions it appears that about 85% of independent restaurants will not survive the situation caused by the pandemic. The U.S. restaurant sector employs about 15.6 million people. The need to replace tens of thousands of restaurant tenants in 2021 & 2022 may help drive a boom in commercial real estate activity.