We (and lots of other observers) were wrong. Most of us expected consumers would gain back a bit of their confidence from the AmericanTaxpayer Relief Act passed just after the New Year. But no.The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index fell again in the January preliminary reading released last Friday, Jan. 18. The index…

It being a new year, we thought we’d share the current macroeconomic forecasts from Blue Chip Economic Indicators. The 50 major economic forecasting groups polled monthly by Blue Chip raised their consensus forecast for real growth of gross domestic product in the U.S. this year by a tick to 2% in the early January survey.…

The price-increase news for foodservice operators in December was actually pretty good. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported wholesale food prices at all three levels of the wholesale chain fell during the month. Finished foods were down 0.9% compared to November, intermediate foods and feeds also fell 0.9% and crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs prices dropped…

It’s been a very tough slog for foodservice operators the past two years in Britain. The austerity regime of tax increases and benefit cuts put in place by the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat government has cut consumers’ disposable income and confidence, led to higher unemployment and kept interest rates at rock bottom. But Peter Backman, managing…

The anticipated increase in the capital gains tax at the federal level combined with generational factors, several years of depressed values, and record low-interest rates to prompt a rash of mergers and acquisitions by foodservice equipment and supplies manufacturers and distributors in the last two months of 2012. A tally of the noteworthy deals for…

Unless you spent the holidays on another planet or at least on a remote island paradise with no media access, you are aware that Congress and the Obama Administration cobbled together in early January a package that made permanent the Bush-era income tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans. This will almost certainly reverse,…

The two indicators in the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index that track recent and future capital spending by restaurant operators took big hits in December, even as other measures in the index rose, pushing up the overall index by half a point. It now rests at 99.9, just shy of the 100 level that…

Los Angeles has many architectural and historical landmarks but few hold the kind of memories created in the original Der Wienerschnitzel outlet. Last month, the L.A. City Council added the nondescript, flat-roofed drive-through, the first of more than 350 opened by the Wienerschnitzel chain, to its registry of historic-cultural monuments. While admitting it is a…

Gordon Oates Jr., a second-generation member of the foodservice equipment industry, died Dec. 5 at age 62, following an illness. He was 62 years old. The Kentucky native spent his first decade in business working for IBM in Louisville, then joined his father, Gordon Sr., in the foodservice equipment industry. Over his long management career,…

After a successful IPO in October, the Chicago-based Potbelly Sandwich Shop chain continued humming along in its fiscal third quarter when nine new shops opened, including eight company-operated units and one franchised store. Overall, 29 new Potbelly’s—all but four company-operated—opened during the first three fiscal quarters of 2013. The Chicago chain anticipates revving up its…