Full-service restaurants, one of the segments of the industry hardest hit by the recession, experienced a 6.3 percent decline in September, a much slower rate of decline as compared to 12.0 percent decline in August, according to the SalesMetrics report issued Monday. This new report, developed by Technomic Inc. in partnership with GuestMetrics, combines point-of-sale (POS) data from more than 2,700 full-service independent and chain restaurants around the nation.
Guest traffic declined 6.1 percent overall, with chain restaurant guest counts declining 6.6 percent and traffic at independent restaurants dropping 5.7 percent during the month. Conversely, average checks decreased 5.5 percent overall, with chain restaurant checks declining 4.4 percent compared with independents, which were down 6.4 percent.
Dinner was the hardest-hit day part (-6.8 percent), followed by breakfast (-5.9 percent) and late night (-5.8 percent). Seafood restaurants experienced the smallest decline (-0.5 percent), while steak restaurants reported a more significant decline (-12.3 percent).
For more information on this report, visit www.foodpubs.com.