Food & Beverage

Fears of 2nd coronavirus wave halt October restaurant sales

Photo: iStock

November 6, 2020

Despite October being the best month for restaurant same-store sales growth since February, the latest resurgence of COVID-19 is not portending well for the road ahead for the restaurant business. The good news is that the company found that October was best month for same-store sales growth since February, but that new was overshadowed by a massive slow-down in the industry's recovery, Black Box Intelligence said in an email.

The report shows that same-store sales growth was down 7.5% during October, which represented a small 0.6 percentage-point improvement from September's year–over–year results. By contrast, same-store sales improved on average 3.6 percentage points during each of the months between July and September, indicating a marked slowdown in the forward progress that was underway.

Black Box Intelligence currently tracks and analyzes more than 290 brands, 2.3 million employees, 50,000 restaurant units and $76 billion in annual sales revenue.