Restaurant Sales Hit Record Numbers

Americans are less frugal than before, and that has trickled down to restaurants.

May 22, 2013

SALT LAKE CITY – After months of belt tightening as the country slowly lumbers out of a recession, Americans are eating out more, USA Today reports. Restaurant sales topped $45 billion last month, a $200 million seasonally adjusted jump from the previous record in December 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s welcome news for restaurants and other purveyors of prepared food. “After totaling nearly $45.7 billion in December, eating and drinking place sales were dampened somewhat during the first three months of 2013, likely due in part to the impact of the payroll tax hike,” said Bruce Grindy, chief economist with the National Restaurant Association, in his analysis of those figures. The association predicts those numbers will continue to increase in the coming months. 

“These new survey results suggest that once consumers are feeling more confident about their personal financial situation, they will be primed to burn off some of their accumulated pent-up demand for restaurants,” wrote Grindy in his report.

Those figures come as a new Gallup poll indicates that consumers are feeling less thrifty than a few years ago, with more than a quarter (26%) of Americans opening their wallets more than before. Forty-one percent of Americans are “spending less money” compared with 57% in 2010, according to the annual Economy and Personal Finance survey by Gallup. 

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