sustainability Article The Impact of Pandemic Crisis on the Restaurant Business Arlindo Madeira 1,2, *, Teresa Palrão 3 and Alexandra Sofia Mendes 4   Citation: Madeira, A.; Palrão, T.; Mendes, A.S. The Impact of Pandemic Crisis on the Restaurant Business. Sustainability 2021, 13, 40. https:// dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13010040 Received: 26 November 2020 Accepted: 20 December 2020 Published: 23 December 2020 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- tral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copyright: © 2020 by the authors. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). 1 Tourism and Hospitality Management School, Universidade Europeia, 1500-210 Lisbon, Portugal 2 ESCAD—School of Science and Administration, 1950-396 Lisbon, Portugal 3 Tourism Department, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal; teresa.palrao@ulusofona.pt 4 CiTUR, School of Tourism and Maritime Technology, Polytechnique of Leiria, 2520-614 Peniche, Portugal; alexandra.mendes@ipleiria.pt * Correspondence: arlindo.madeira@universidadeeuropeia.pt Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for a health crisis and, at the same time, for a sharp drop in activities of economic sustainability, particularly in tourism management, and has consequences in most countries that are still difficult to measure. The objective of this research is to identify restaurant entrepreneurs’ perceptions about the future, government measures, strategies they will apply, and lessons learned for the future after the mandatory lockdown of restaurants and hospitality establishments related to pandemics. The framework was developed through con- tent analysis with line-by-line coding applied to questionnaires collected online from Portuguese restaurant entrepreneurs. The results reveal the existence of common concerns to all entrepreneurs in the restaurant business for the post-pandemic period, about the measures that the governments should implement, and about the strategies and lessons learned for the future. Resilience in face of the future, fear of a lack of appropriate government measures, strategies designed for markets with greater immediate availability, and the creation of working capital are visible concerns in the restaurant business. Keywords: restaurant business; pandemic crisis; post-crisis management; economic sustainability; tourism management 1. Introduction Over the last ten years, the Portuguese restaurant industry has experienced enormous growth, associated with the growth of tourism in Portugal, especially in the Algarve coastal regions, Lisbon, and Porto. Further, Portuguese wines, Portuguese cuisine, and Portuguese chefs have become internationally renowned, which has resulted in an increase in the number of wine tourists and gastro tourists. According to Bank of Portugal [1] data, in 2018 the share of the accommodation, catering, and similar sectors represented 10% of companies in Portugal, 9% of people in service, and 3% of turnover. The restaurant business sector plays an essential role in the economy of a country even though many small and medium-sized restaurants fail during their first four years of activity, which is an example of the need for strategies to financially sustain their business beyond five years [2]. Other authors have also pointed out the importance of a survival strategy for the restaurant sector and for re-establishing consumer confidence [3–5]. Economic sustainability is the additional income provided to local inhabitants to compensate them for the presence of tourists and what that can result in. It can also be defined as the improvements to the local economy that the development of tourism can produce in the long term, taking into account all the impacts that affect the different sectors and the economy of local industries [6]. Núñez-Rios, Sánchez-García, Rojas, and Olivares- Benitez [7] also evince that organizational sustainability and sustainable performance continue to be a challenge for small and medium-sized companies because their resources and organizational structure are very limiting. Unsustainable economic growth generated Sustainability 2021, 13, 40. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13010040 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability