Since restaurant industry sales bottomed out in April, Black Box Intelligence has been tracking the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic closures.
“Recovery is a delicate word,” said Kelli Valade, CEO and president of the Dallas-based Black Box Intelligence restaurant analytics firm. “We’re now showing every member, every operator who wants to engage with us, state-by-state what’s happening as states open back up.”
Questions remain about whether guests will trust restaurants enough to return and how confident they will be to do that, she said.
Valade will present the latest trends in her keynote presentation at noon CDT June 3. The session, “What the Data Shows: The state of the forever-changed restaurant industry,” is part of the Restaurants Rise free digital event, hosted by Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality June 2-5.
“This is an amazing opportunity to help the restaurants get better and help this industry get back on its feet,” Valade said.
Valade said operators pivoted quickly after states and cities in March began to impose restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus and adapted well to off-premise sales, but states are allowing phased increases in dine-in capacity.
“They [customers] may have forever cemented their belief in off-premise,” Valade noted, “but we do expect to see the tradeoff happen a little bit.”
Black Box tracks sales, traffic, workforce and guest statistics from more than 300 restaurant companies, and Valade she will present data from Black Box Financial Intelligence that will be only days old, same-store sales by region
Here’s a preview from Valade on what registrants can expect at Restaurant Rise.
Correction May 22, 2020: This story has been edited to correct the spelling of Kelli Valade.
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