Restaurant Industry's Same-Store Sales Were Up in February

Same-store traffic was also up during the month

SPONSORED 1:13PM • 03/10/16

Same-store sales for the restaurant industry increased in February, after having a disappointing showing in January. February's same-store sales grew 0.4 percent, according to data from TDn2K's Black Box Intelligence through The Restaurant Industry. Experts believe the small amount of growth is due to consumers spending less at restaurants.

The data was based on weekly sales from over 23,000 restaurant units and more than 120 brands. Victor Fernandez, executive director of insights and knowledge for TDn2K, said there were a number of outside factors contributing to February's lackluster growth.

“On one hand, the 2015 Super Bowl was included in January’s numbers, while this year, the game was played a week later and fell within February’s results,” Fernandez said. “This meant February’s restaurant same-store sales were negatively impacted by the shift, since restaurant sales are hurt by this event. On the other hand, severe winter weather continued to be a factor during February."

Traffic among restaurants had actually improved from January. Same-store traffic dropped 1.3 percent in February, a 1.8 percent improvement from January's results. February's metric is best performance the industry has seen since September 2015. Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors and TDn2K, said the industry should see more improvement.

“With the winter winding down, we should begin to see the true trend in consumer spending,” Naroff said. “Right now, consumption is decent but not great. Government figures for January restaurant sales were down, the first negative month in two years. Since both declines were January sales figures, we need to look past any temporary factors and ask the question: Can household spending hold up? If you look at the income data, wages and salaries are rising at an accelerating pace."

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