Time for ‘good’ ideas in the restaurant industry

Editor's note: This exclusive series to Nation’s Restaurant News provides C-level insights into the sales and traffic data from clients subscribing to Black Box Intelligence, a financial performance benchmarking company. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Nation’s Restaurant News.

Black Box Intelligence released the most recent Restaurant Industry Snapshot, and for the month of November, same-store sales rose .5 percent — another month in the under-1-percent world that restaurants have been in since the first quarter. In fact, only two of the last nine months of same-store sales were over 1 percent.

We find ourselves hoping for a wonderful December, full of more shopping days than last year to help us move into the new year with some positive momentum. So far for the quarter we are seeing an increase of .3 percent in same-store sales, and we are up against tougher 2011 rollover same-store sales, which increased 1.4 percent in the fourth quarter. 

Quarter-to-date, we are even with the fourth quarter of last year. That quarter was made in December 2011 with a strong same-store sales increase of 2.8 percent. This would lead me to believe we are still going to finish in positive territory, stronger than any quarter since the first quarter of 2012. But with that said, we still need a big month.

Traffic actually improved slightly better than the same-store sales, but remains negative, with a decrease of 1.1 percent, and markets remain pretty equally mixed up and down, as they have been in the past few months. 

Of course, in November the East Coast was hurt in week one by Hurricane Sandy. Interestingly, New York and New Jersey faired better than the Mid Atlantic. This seems to be the pattern after any disaster; revenues rise as help arrives and people have to eat out because of the damage to homes and power outages. Restaurants also experienced a gain during the month in to-go orders and catering, outpacing dine-in sales. 

There is a continuing concern in the restaurant sector from our partner Consumer Edge Research in their Restaurant Willingness to Spend Index, which decreased again this month.