Posted on 10/15/2008 12:30:17 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
American restaurants are seeing a sharp decline in consumers and sales as the credit crisis continues.
Restaurants Hit by Credit Crunch
For the first time in two decades, the $550 billion restaurant industry is suffering from sluggish sales. Restaurant owners are being hard hit as credit lines for investment and operating costs dry up in the current economic recession. Increases in food and labor costs have also taken a toll on restaurant finances.
The current financial crisis has challenged owners of franchises and private establishments alike. Both have had difficulty attracting customers, paying employees and furnishing kitchens with the necessary tools and equipment.
Aaron Allen, CEO of international restaurant-consulting firm Quantified Marketing Group, told Time magazine, “The credit crisis is having a devastating effect on nearly every segment of the industry … This is the death knell for a number of restaurant chains.”
Fast food and upscale fast food spots that don’t have wait staff may fare better than full-service establishments as they can maintain lower costs.
A recent survey found that 38 percent of consumers have scaled back on restaurant visits. Of those who do dine out, 28 percent skip appetizers or desserts, and 21 percent are consuming less alcohol.
Restaurant critic Tim Zagat told New York 1, “It's not good and it’s probably the most threatening thing that has happened,” he said, referring to the current crisis. “But we’ve seen the industry, which is extremely strong, come through times that were equally difficult."
Zagat predicts that restaurants will continue to open, but notes that they will be “fewer and more value-oriented.”
Background: Restaurant industry in slow decline
The restaurant and bar industry has been suffering for much of 2008. Reuters reported that a survey published by Nielsen and Bevinco this summer said, “more than 40 percent of bar managers, bar owners, and bartenders surveyed … report they have seen a decrease in consumer traffic, while 25 percent note a decrease in the number of drinks ordered and 22 percent say that customers are ordering less expensive drinks.”
Related Topic: At-home dining boosts cookbook and cooking utensil sales
Market research firms have noticed that more people are preparing food at home to save money. But many have been eating in restaurants for years, leaving their kitchen cabinets devoid of the proper utensils and cookbooks. As a result, reports the Associated Press, “sales of cookbooks, inexpensive cookware and the basic foods needed to concoct a meal” are up, while magazines and Web sites devoted to cooking are thriving as new home cooks scramble to stock their kitchen shelves.
Quit smoking in July after smoking for for 43 years (started when I was 14). On July 22 had three stents put in. On July 26 had cardiac arrest and came real close to death. Don’t miss the cigarettes at all but do miss some of the better tasting food I’ve had to give up.
Sorry about your lung loss and hope you get better. God can heal, you know.
Midnight breakfast was always the best meal served.
LOL...have fun standing outside in February dragging on that cig.
Don’t hate on me because I don’t wanna inhale YOUR smoke while I’m enjoying MY meal.
If we’re talking about a bar, all bets are off—that’s apples/oranges, but while I’m eating my NY Strip, I have no patience for the odor of your Marlboro...
Take care.
I never smoked in restaurants anyway since it's just bad manners to subject others to cigar smoke while eating inside.
However, it should be up to the restaurant to decide whether to allow smoking within their establishment, not government.
LOL! I KNEW I should have stayed in Texas, but it was simply tooooooo HOT for me. ;*)
Of course it is the same thing! There are no "facts" about cig smoke, only carefully crafted propaganda that you are happy to spread.
If you have some kind of smoking device that has a glass enclosure .....
That was done along with high priced air filtration systems, but that wasn't good enough for the facists! State wide smoking bans it is.
If this was a FREE COUNTRY, one could open a "non-smoking" restaurant, which they all have become under facist state wide smoking bans, and someone else could open a "smoking" restaurant down the street. But NOOOoooooooo
Hey, as long as the smoke nazis are happy, nothing else matters.
They're achieving their desires by their ignorance and/or vindictiveness and it's a farce. By the incessant warnings of the dangers of SHS, they had to manipulate the actual scientific findings.
Apparently, there is no proof that the average person has ever suffered from it. As to my own observation, looking back over many years, I've never known of one case where anyone became ill or died from SHS. Yet, during most of those years, smoking was common.
These smoking bans are nothing more than big brother control over citizens.
It was predicted, and we already see, government gearing up to control what people eat and what the restaurants can serve.
Another very important part of the government package will include taking from those who have worked hard to earn their money being forced by government to share it with those who have less. Hillary said it. Obama said it.
Anyone who believes they have the right to deny freedoms under the Constitution had better be ready to give up theirs, if the Dems take over the White House.
Where I’m at, people are still buying $3000 bottles of wine like they were soda pop...but for how long?
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