Recommended: The cost of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic | Nature Human Behaviour

Anti-Chinese sentiment increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting as a considerable spike in overt violence and hatred directed at Asian American individuals. However, it is less clear how subtle patterns of consumer discrimination, which are difficult to directly observe yet greatly impact Asian American livelihoods, changed through the pandemic. Here we examine this in the context of restaurants—ubiquitous small businesses that sell goods that are closely entwined with ethnicity. Using a series of surveys, online search trends and consumer traffic data, we find that Asian restaurants experienced an 18.4% decrease in traffic (estimated US$7.42 billion lost revenue in 2020) relative to comparable non-Asian restaurants, with greater decreases in areas with higher levels of support for Donald Trump. Our findings are consistent with the roles of collective blame, out-group homogeneity and ethnic misidentification in explaining how anti-China rhetoric can harm the Asian American community, underlining the importance of avoiding racism and stigmatization in political and public health communications.