Home > Blogs > Taste: Dayton food and restaurants > Archives > 2010 > April > 01 > Entry
Sales soft, but restaurant owners’ expectations soaring
I’ve been tracking these monthly “Restaurant Performance Index” reports from the National Restaurant Association for a while now, and there hasn’t been much to cheer about for a long time.
But in February, the “RPI” rose to its highest level in two years, an encouraging sign. The rise was more the result of restaurateurs’ optimistic expectations than actual restaurant performance: Sales and traffic levels remained soft in February, but the “expectations index” portion of the overall performance measurement rose to a 29-month high, the restaurant association reported.
Restaurants capital-spending plans also rose to a two-year high, and restaurant operators “reported a positive outlook for staffing gains for the first time in more than two years,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the Research and Knowledge Group for the restaurant association. “This bodes well for replacing the more than 280,000 eating and drinking place jobs lost during the recession.”
Wow. Two-hundred and eighty thousand.
You can watch a video of Riehle’s monthly industry update here.
Are you more likely or less likely to dine out now than you were a month ago? Six months ago?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Restaurant industry news
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By eater outer
April 1, 2010 11:49 PM | Link to this
I enjoy eating out. I’m a single woman who ends up throwing out a lot of extra food that I prepare that I can’t drag myself to eat a 3rd portion of… and food that expires or gets old before I can finish it. I agree that certain restaurants (Fridays, I have esp. notices) have upped their prices and over $2 for a soft drink exceeds a tidy profit margin to be grossly over charging. I’ll still go out - although I try more to patronize local eateries when they are good. People will go out - they will be more thoughtful and less forgiving of stingy portions, unattentive service and over priced places. Restaurants need to allocate 1 person at the door (I don’t need people to open the door for me) and have the rest be wait staff, cooks and bussers.
By Scott
April 1, 2010 1:15 PM | Link to this
Eating out is becoming too expensive even at mid level restaurants. They rip you off on soft drinks also. We go out a lot less because it never seems to be worth the money.