For the first time on record in December, monthly sales at restaurants exceeded grocery stores sales, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This development was hinted at through preliminary data releases in recent months but was officially confirmed by this week’s annual benchmark of Census data.
At first glance, this may not seem like an outdoor specialty story, but this apparent shift in spending has wide implications that go beyond food sales.
Experts and economist point to several reasons for the rise in restaurant spending. The reallocation of consumers’ food dollars toward restaurants coincided with a decline in gas prices in recent months, which suggests that the savings at the pump may have helped accelerate this change. At the same time, 46 percent of those surveyed for the National Restaurant Association say more frequents visits to restaurants are because their household income went up. Three in 10 consumers say they are using restaurants more often because they got a new job or because their home or investments are worth more.
What’s more, a significant proportion of the American public say they would like to be patronizing restaurants more often. Thirty-eight percent of all adults say they are not eating on the premises of restaurants as frequently as they would like, while 37 percent say they are not purchasing takeout or delivery as often as they would like.
Putting these results in a historical context, this measure of pent-up demand remains well above pre-recession levels, says NRA. “On a consistent basis during the stronger restaurant business environment of the mid-2000s, typically only one-quarter of adults said they were not patronizing restaurants as frequently as they would like.”
This shift in spending, regardless of the reasons given, is significant beyond “food sales” because it quantifies on ongoing shift in the lives of the American family. Undoubtedly, the family dinner and the family dinner table have been cultural staples for some time. Fast-casual, quick take-out meals, eating on the run or in the car while driving, versus the family dinner table meal, where time is taken out and the day’s events discussed, all represent a change in family schedules, lifestyle choices, time together, etc.
At the same time, from a purely retail business perspective, one doesn’t have to be a home economics major to understand that eating at restaurants and take out is more expensive than buying groceries and cooking at home. We pay for the convenience, lack of clean up, speed, etc. That seems to suggest we are going to see a rise in the proportion of household income spent on food, which has remained fairly consistent since those figures have been tabulated. That, in turn, could mean a lower percentage of disposable income being spent on other things, including recreation.
