As you can tell from the pictures, working in a restaurant can be really demanding. But nowadays, the whole industry is stressed. And it's mostly due to the pandemic.

The National Restaurant Association said restaurant and food-service sales were $240 billion below its 2020 pre-covid forecasts. Over 110,000 eating and drinking establishments closed last year, either temporarily or for good. The association hopes 2021 will be a year of rebuilding, with trends like off-premise dining and delivery continuing to gain importance as consumer preferences shift.

The report, which surveyed 6,000 operators and 1,000 adults, said restaurant and food-service sales came in at $659 billion last year — that’s $240 billion lower than its pre-pandemic projections for the year of $899 billion in total sales.

"If one looks at the industry in terms of actual sales volume level at the end of 2020, it was down at 2014 levels. In other words, the industry has been set back six years of sales growth," Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association, said as the trade group released its annual analysis.

But there has been a silver lining. Riehle noted that the Covid crisis prompted operators to get creative with new forays into technology and delivery, and many are hoping the second half of 2021 will bring an opportunity for a rebound as consumers have missed dining out.

"It's important to think of 2021 as the year of transition," he said. "Recovery for the industry will definitely take time."

The group is projecting a bounce back in food and beverage sales in 2021 to $731.5 billion, still far below where things stood before Covid hit the industry.

However, consumers continue to embrace takeout and delivery and the delta variant threatens to make dining in less of an option. So struggling establishments are transforming into pop-up restaurants.

They can take a variety of forms, from a ramen maker appearing for one night only at an established bar to a taco maker on a street corner. Cheaper to operate than regular restaurants because they have less overhead and staffing costs, pop-ups allow chefs and owners to keep working and making a living during the early part of the pandemic when dining rooms were closed and the economy was teetering — they've helped bring buzz to existing restaurants that host them. And some have even morphed into permanent new businesses.

The flexibility of the take-out and delivery options helped Alex Thaboua meet those challenges. Thaboua is co-owner of Electric Burrito, which began as a pop-up at Mister Paradise bar in New York in 2020. A permanent location opened in May and is focused on take-out and delivery, so even if there is another lockdown, the restaurant will be able to operate, he said.

“This flexibility was something we found very important during our pop-up stages, when the world was getting locked down and heavy restrictions were being placed on businesses,” he told Associated Press. “We’ve designed our operations in a way that we can continue to operate with a lean team, with every safety precaution taken, to be able to serve guests in both a to-go and delivery capacity.”

It's places like this that help keep your mood positive.