With the hit to the economy from the severe winter, many economists feared American consumers would pull back their spending this year. But judging by the latest numbers on consumer confidence, the decline in growth in the first quarter hasn’t affected consumer attitudes much at all.“Consumers are ready to celebrate a delayed spring with renewed…

While economists do expect the severe winter weather and the drought in the West to have taken a toll on economic growth in the first quarter of 2014, they remain quite upbeat about the remainder of the year and 2015, according to the latest consensus forecasts from Blue Chip Economic Indicators. While the forecast for…

As expected, the growth of state tax revenues slowed in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to preliminary data from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, based at the State University of New York-Albany. The research group has expected the slowdown, as the front-loading effects of new federal tax laws in January 2013 wind down. With…

Revenues jumped significantly for most of the publicly reporting equipment and supplies companies in the fourth quarter 2013, pushing annual sales higher for the full year. The numbers are compiled by John Muldowney, a marketing executive at the Boelter Cos., exclusively for Foodservice Equipment Reports. Four of the five equipment-oriented companies and both supplies-oriented companies…

Although challenging weather conditions continued to negatively impact customer traffic in February, the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index remained above 100 for the 12th consecutive month. The monthly composite index tracking the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry stood at 100.5 in February, down a bit from January’s level of 100.7.…

Sluggish growth from several of the largest U.S. restaurant chains helped push combined growth for the 500 largest chain brands lower last year, according to Technomic Inc.’s preliminary results from its annual Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, released March 24. The Top 500 grew combined sales 3.5% in 2013, compared with growth of 4.9% in…

Ironically now—in view of recent events—traffic in the still-developing Russian restaurant market jumped 7% in the fourth quarter compared with the prior year quarter, according to the latest global consumer CREST data from The NPD Group. In a remarkable change of fortune, visits in China during the quarter fell 4%, though surging menu price increases…

The severe winter weather in as much as two-thirds of the U.S. has cut dramatically into restaurant and other foodservice sales, according to new research released by Technomic Inc. on March 4. As a result, Technomic is cutting its forecast of 2014 operator sales by as much as a full percentage point from the 3.6%…

While winter’s negative impact on restaurant and tavern sales also is apparent in the U.S. Census Bureau’s retail sales numbers, the latest advance estimate, released March 13, shows a return to slight month-over-month growth with eating- and drinking-place sales up 0.3% in February. The gain matched that of the overall retail sales number for February.…

Visits to restaurants during breakfast now account for 21% of all restaurant occasions, according to CREST data from The NPD Group, which released meal-period traffic breakdowns for 2013 on March 11. Breakfast visits jumped 3% last year, the third consecutive year of gains for the meal period, to more than 12.5 billion occasions. In comparison,…