Staffing

Cracks in restaurant industry widening due to labor shortage

Photo: iStock.

June 30, 2021

Though the latest restaurant industry data from Black Box Intelligence shows sales grew again for the 14th straight week industry-wide, limited-service didn't fare as well as it has for the week of June 20, which was attributed to more diners gravitating to full-service concepts for Dad's Day. But some of the more troubling results for all restaurant segments suggest that industry-wide labor shortages are really starting to register some negative effects when it comes to diner satisfaction, according to a release of results from the data analytics company.

Black Box reported that though sales and traffic have improved considerably in recent quarters, guest sentiment data suggests shows the actual speed of service is suffering, with net sentiment on that element dropping nearly industry-wide for the second straight quarter. In fact, this appears to be an even more significant issue outside of casual and family dining and within limited-service where drops in diners feelings around service speed were far larger this quarter than last. Of special note here, is that the biggest drops in this quarter in those types of negative mentions about service were in fast casual, followed by fine dining and then QSR.

Financially, in a two-year comparison of numbers, Black Box found that the average check size for the week showed double-digit year-over-year growth during the week of June 20. The best same-store sales growth during the period took place in the West (not including California), then the Southeast, Florida and California. The worst weekly performance occurred in Texas, New England and New York/New Jersey.

Finally, the grocery store is still attracting a lot of potential restaurant business, with traditional groceries now capturing roughly double the spend of that at restaurants, especially in the Northeast where consumers allocate the most to food at home. Restaurants, on the other hand, take up 25% to 40% of total food spend in all regions.