Operations

Restaurant traffic rebounds post Cyclospora

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August 26, 2026

Summarize with

The newest data from Placer.ai reveals restaurant traffic is recovering from the Cyclospora outbreak.

The latest data covers the week of Monday, Aug. 10 through Sunday, August 16 and shows traffic upticks for several quick service and fast casual chains.

Key takeaways:

Overall restaurant traffic remained above the first half of 2026 weekly averages, with fast-casual restaurants up 4.0% and quick-service restaurants up 3.2%.
Chopt improved significantly week over week, moving from -4.7% in the week of Aug. 3 to -1.2% for the week of Aug. 10.
Taco Bell also continued to recover, improving from -8.0% to -4.5% week over week, although traffic remained below its first half of 2026 average.
Among the brands tracked, CAVA (+8.2%) and sweetgreen (+7.1%) posted some of the strongest gains above their first half of 2026 weekly averages.
Burger King (+3.6%), Chick-fil-A (+3.2%),Chipotle (+2.1%), Jersey Mike's (+5.4%), McDonald's (+3.6%), Panera (+0.9%), Subway (+3.0%) and Wendy's (+5.3%) all remained above their first half of 2026 weekly averages.