Black Box’s Weekly Performance Pulse Says Restaurant Sales Had Strongest Results Since July

Black Box Financial Intelligence’s latest Restaurant Industry Performance Pulse shows the week ending Sept. 5 was the strongest week for restaurant sales since July, but growth remains negative.

The top-performing regions for sales growth were Florida, the Western region, the Southeast and California, while the weakest regions were the Southwest, New York and New Jersey, New England and Mountain Plains.

Hurricane Ida strongly impacted sales in Louisiana, as they were down 27% for the week, despite the hurricane only affecting the last day of the week. By the next week, however, there were signs of recovery, with sales sitting at -8.3%, an improvement of 18 percentage points.

As for the performance of the various restaurant segments, casual dining was the only segment not to see an improvement during the week. Fine dining was the top-performing segment, followed by fast casual and quick service. Family dining remains the weakest segment based on sales growth, despite an improvement during the week.

The latest performance pulse also shows that off-premise sales growth for limited-service restaurants accelerated during the week, while off-premise sales growth for full-service restaurants “remained elevated but flat compared to the previous week.”

Black Box Financial Intelligence releases its Restaurant Industry Performance Pulse every Wednesday.