CHICAGO - The number of U.S. restaurants in the country dropped by one percent - or 5,551 total units, according to the NPD Group€™s most recent restaurant census.

NPD€™s Fall 2010 ReCount tracks commercial restaurant locations in the United States, a survey that it updates each spring and fall. Overall, independent restaurants suffered the most, with a 2 percent decline in units, while the count of chain restaurants was flat. The number of QSRs dropped one percent, or 2,122 units, while full-service restaurants were down one percent, or 3,429 units.

"These past two years have been particularly tough for independents, which don€™t have the resources to compete with the chains," said Greg Starzynski, director of product development-foodservice at NPD. "Over the past few years we've lost several thousand independent restaurants."

According to NPD€™s CREST, which tracks consumer usage of commercial and non-commercial food outlets, restaurant traffic has been declining since January 2009, though the trend is "softening." For the year ending November 2010, U.S. restaurant traffic dropped one percent compared to a year ago, while for the year ending November 2009, numbers were down three percent compared to the prior year.

Last week NACS announced that the number of U.S. convenience stores grew 1.2 percent over the past year and stands at 146,341 as of December 31, 2010, according to the NACS/Nielsen TDLinx 2011 Convenience Industry Store Count.