It appears that consumers are growing anxious about the economy, and that is leading to some unease in the restaurant industry, according to a QSR magazine report. Signs are ominous that almost every sector in the $783 billion restaurant industry is in trouble. Although breakfast sales at fast-food restaurants rose 2 percent during the first quarter of 2016, far more critical lunch sales were down 3 percent, while dinner sales were off 2 percent, reports The NPD Group.
It is as if consumers who never fully recovered from the last recession are now preparing for the next one, says Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst at NPD. “I’m not an economist, but I’ve studied all the past recessions and how consumers behaved, and we’ve never experienced anything quite like this before,” she says. If there is one clear sign that something might be amiss in the restaurant industry, it is this: even the high-flying fast-casual dining sector has hit turbulence. For years, the fast-casual industry grew at an explosive pace. But uncertainty is settling in, as it has in the rest of the restaurant industry, and the onus is not just on troubled Chipotle, which has faced a series of health and safety-related issues.