Full-Service Restaurant Performance Showing Some Signs of Improvement
By FE&S Staff -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, October 28, 2009
Nationally, full service restaurant performance declined 6.3 percent in September compared with 12.0 percent for the month of August, according to data collected by Technomic in partnership with GuestMetrics. In general, guest traffic declined by 6.1 percent in Sept., with chain restaurants showing a decrease of 6.6 percent, while independent restaurants showed only a 5.7 percent decrease.
Despite a national sales decline in September, regional performance varied dramatically, according to Technomic. For example, Phoenix showed year-over-year growth of 7.6 percent and the Los Angeles market declining 12.1 percent.
Other data points of note from Technomic’s SalesMetrics report include:
• Daypart trends indicate that dinner business has seen the largest decrease in usage (-6.8 percent) followed by breakfast (-5.9 percent), and late night (-5.8 percent). Lunch had the smallest decline (-5.3 percent), according to Technomic.
• Performance trends analyzed by cuisine types varied dramatically with seafood restaurants posting the smallest decline (-0.5 percent) and steak restaurants declining more significantly (-12.3 percent).
• In general, guest traffic decreased 6.1 percent in September.
• Average check price has decreased 5.5 percent, with chain restaurants declining only 4.4 percent compared with independents, down 6.4 percent.
The data is based on point-of-sale data from more than 2,700 national full service independent and chain restaurants.
