Home > Blogs > Taste: Dayton food and restaurants > Archives > 2009 > June > 30 > Entry
National restaurant industry outlook darkened in May
The national outlook for restaurants darkened a bit in May as the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index posted its first decline in five months, according to this National Restaurant Association news release.
An observation and a question: the restaurant association releases these monthly surveys on the last business day of each month, interpreting the results from the previous month’s survey (for example, the June 30 release covers May, not June). So these surveys are by definition at least slightly out of date by the time of their release. No slam against the association, which needs time to gather and interpret a large amount of data, but the timeliness of these releases isn’t the freshest.
And the question: How closely do these national restaurant industry surveys mirror the Dayton-area situation? Are they an accurate barometer of the state of the restaurant industry in the Miami Valley?
Okay, that was two questions.
Here’s a key quote from the restaurant association’s news release:
“With the performance of the current situation indicators holding relatively steady in May, the RPI’s decline was the result of restaurant operators’ dampened outlook for each of the four forward-looking indicators,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of Research and Information Services for the Association. “Although restaurant operators remain relatively optimistic that economic conditions will improve in six months, their outlook for sales growth and capital spending activity softened somewhat.”
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By Rita
July 1, 2009 10:25 AM | Link to this
This all started with the smoking ban. It has put many businesses out of business. The anti smokers swore they would go if there was no smoking. However, they did not hold up to their promises.