Watching the sales trend steadily grow each month has been a thing of beauty!
Just like other recent holiday weekends, the Fourth of July showed a notable uptick in sales for both Full Service and Fast Casual restaurants. Compared to this time last year, these traditionally expected bumps might be an example of returning to more pre-covid behavior and trends. Can we get a hallelujah!?
We like what we’re seeing including Fast Casual being in the double digits for monthly weighted averages, and Full Service quickly closing the gap at just -5.7%. Overall year-over-year sales compared to 2019 spent most of the month on the positive side (!!) and teased us by ending up three tenths of a percentage below breaking even.
It will be interesting to see how the now widespread Delta variant impacts restaurant sales as some counties are bringing back mask mandates and some restaurant owners are requiring proof of vaccination to dine in. Next month’s metrics should give a better indication of how those policies play out.
August, we’re ready for you!
About these metrics: The MarginEdge monthly snapshot of DC Metro restaurant sales is based on a sampling of 300+ area restaurants ranging from fast-casual to full-service.