“Although restaurant operators overall continued to report positive same-store sales in October, their short-term outlook for sales growth and the economy is decidedly more pessimistic,” says Hudson Riehle, senior vice-president of the NRA’s research and knowledge group. “Nearly two out of five restaurant operators expect business conditions to worsen in the next six months, which is double the proportion that expect conditions to improve.”
The RPI’s current situation index, which measures current industry trends in the areas of same-store sales, traffic, labor and capital expenditures, was 99.3 in October, a 0.6% decline compared with September. While same-store sales remained positive in October, declines in the labor and customer traffic indicators outweighed the performance, according to the NRA.
The index’s expectations component, which measures operators’ six-month outlook for same-store sales, employees, capital expenditures and business conditions, stood at 99.7 in October, a 1.2% decline when compared with September.
Restaurant operators’ outlook for sales growth has deteriorated significantly in recent months, the NRA says. Thirty-one per cent of restaurant operators expect to have higher sales in six months, compared with the same period in the previous year, down from 45% in September and the lowest level in three years. Meanwhile, 21% of restaurant operators expect their sales volume in six months to be lower than it was during the same period in the previous year, up from 11% in September.
The NRA also reported that restaurant operators are increasingly pessimistic about the direction of the overall economy. Only 20% of restaurant operators said they expect economic conditions to improve in six months, down from 26% last month. In contrast, 38% of operators said they expect economic conditions to worsen in the next six months, up from 18% in September and the highest level in nearly four years.
