Third Week in a Row of Sales Gains for Restaurants

Consumer insights firm Black Box Intelligence's April 29 report on restaurant financial and consumer trends amidst the COVID-19 outbreak offers a little optimism this week: This is the third consecutive week that comp sales improved, perhaps indicating that the absolute worst for restaurants may have passed.

Other key insights from this week's report:

• Comp sales for the week ending April 19 were -47.6%, the best result posted by the industry since March 15 and an 11.3 percentage point improvement from last week’s comp sales.
• Quick service continues to be the top performing segment; at -4% comp sales for the week ending April 19, quick service is close to start experience flat sales growth YOY.
• Off-premise comp sales YOY continue growing at a rapidly accelerating pace as a result of the pandemic restrictions. For limited service brands, off-premise sales (including to-go, drive-thru, delivery and catering) increased by +20% YOY during the week. For full service brands, the increase in off-premise sales was +207% YOY.
• All 11 regions of the country improved comp sales results during the week ending April 19 in comparison with results for the previous week.
• Wine and liquor stores have performed well throughout the pandemic with positive YOY sales growth of greater than 25% for the last 6 consecutive weeks. Alcoholic beverage sales growth in casual dining, upscale casual and fine dining has averaged about -98% YOY over the last 4 weeks, suggesting consumers are replacing the alcoholic beverage consumption with

For the complete report of insights, visit Black Box Intelligence.