As the restaurant industry seeks to recover amid the challenges of inflation and supply chain challenges, its traffic is down 2% from last year. The latest update from the NPD Group, indicates total restaurant visits decreased by 2% in the first quarter of 2022, but were up 1% in comparison to 2020’s first quarter.
A restaurant industry sales report indicates that sales for February 2022 at eating and drink places were up 2.5% from the prior month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The update from the National Restaurant Association also indicated January’s adjusted total sales came in at $72.1B.
Full-service restaurant sales rebounded in Q4 2021, up 55% from the prior-year same quarter, according to an inaugural quarterly Restaurant Trends Report from Toast. The point-of-sale (POS) and technology platform for restaurants pulled data together from 57,000 locations as of the end of 2021.
The National Restaurant Association has named Michelle L. Korsmo president and chief executive of the National Restaurant Association. She will also become CEO of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. As she starts her duties on May 1, Korsmo will be mapping out a strategic path forward for building a thriving restaurant and foodservice community.
Seventy-six percent of restaurant operators say that business conditions now are worse then three months ago, according to recently-released survey results from the National Restaurant Association. In a letter to Congress, the Association noted that the survey shows that the RRF first round funding saved more than 900,000 jobs and helped 96% of recipients stay open.
Staffing shortages may be rearing their head this fall, as the restaurant industry experiences softer growth than in the fall. New data from Black Box Intelligence suggest that there may be a correlation between staffing issues and sales degradation and service-level declines. October’s increase from last year came in at 6%, softer than September, which posted a 6.3% increase. Moreover, October is more than two percentage-points from the sales peak in July, which was up 8.2% over last year.
Fifty-three percent of consumers are dining in restaurants less, according to a 2021 The Why? Behind the Dine report issued by Acosta, a sales and marketing agency. The research, powered by its CORE Foodservice business unit, also indicates that 27% of diners are ordering carryout out more often, and 23% of consumers are selecting the drive-thru more often.
A new survey from the National Restaurant Association shows the fragility of the restaurant industry’s recovery. Many restaurant operators now believe that the recovery will run into 2022. Forty-four percent of operators believe that it will be more than a year before normal business conditions resume, and 19% believe that there will never be a return to normal business conditions.
In August, restaurants online and physical visits continue to make a comeback, increasing 5% from last year, compared to a 10% decline reported last August from the prior year. This, despite the delta variant and bad weather. Data from The NPD Group, a Chicago-based research firm, affirms the ongoing recovery, but also that it falls short of pre-pandemic levels. For example, August traffic was still down 5% from August 2019.
Amid vaccination requirements, Resy has partnered with CLEAR to provide a way for restaurants to utilize CLEAR’s Health Pass technology free of charge through 2022. Restaurants can use CLEAR’s Health Pass service with their employees and also use the Digital Vaccine Card to verify customer vaccination where required.
