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APT: Consumer spending at restaurants up 3 consecutive months

The surge in performance, up 1.6 percent for the month of August, was driven by an industrywide increase in check size, which APT attributed to increased industrywide pricing to cover increasing labor and commodity costs.

September 16, 2015

After three months of steady growth, Applied Predictive Technologies once again found consumer spending at restaurants increased for the month of August when compared to last year. The surge in performance (spending was up 1.6 percent for the month of August) was driven by an industrywide increase in check size, which APT attributed to restaurants increasing pricing to cover more expensive labor and commodity costs, according to a press release.

Quick-service restaurants continued to outperform full-service restaurants, at 3.7 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.

"Month after month, we’re seeing a set of common trends in restaurant sales," said Patrick O’Reilly, APT president and COO. "These trends include positive growth overall, with strong performance specifically on the West Coast. This growth continues to be driven by larger checks, which we think is partly a result of restaurants increasing prices to cover more expensive labor and commodity costs."

The APT Index aggregates in-store sales data at over 100,000 chain stores and restaurants across the U.S. to show how year-over-year sales performance changes.