News

Restaurant industry posts solid sales gain in March

April 15, 2014

The National Restaurant Association announced that industry sales figures were up solidly in March, after a soft winter. Chief Economist Bruce Grindy said in a news release that eating and drinking sales totaled $47.3 billion on a seasonally-adjusted basis in March, which is up 1.1 percent from February's volume of $46.8 billion.

"The March sales volume matched the previous record high registered in November 2013, and came on the heels of three months in which sales were dampened somewhat by challenging weather conditions," he said.

Operators are somewhat optimistic about the coming months, as well. In the NRA's March 2014 Restaurant Industry Tracking Survey, 40 percent of said they expect to have higher sales in six months (compared to the same period in the previous year), which is essentially unchanged from the responses in the previous four months, Grindy said.

"Only 11 percent of restaurant operators expect their sales volume in six months to be lower than it was during the same period in the previous year, while 49 percent expect their sales to remain about the same," he said.

However, surveyed operators are somewhat less bullish about the direction of the economy, with 55 percent expecting conditions to remain generally unchanged in the next six months, and 16 percent expecting the economy to worsen.