May 2022 National Restaurant Sales Metrics

Both Fast Casual and Full Service ended May higher than where they were at the end of April, by a few percentage points each – hard to know exactly what is driving the increase, whether prices are going up to adjust for inflation or whether the warm weather has diners thawing out and back in dining rooms. It’s probably a bit of both – but hoping for more of the latter than former.

Evaporated milk snagged the number one spot on the Movers board for May, and we'd like to call special attention to limes making it onto our May Droppers board. Limes have been a notoriously difficult product lately, both price and supply wise, so it's nice to see their prices decreased on average during May.

Overall May's numbers remained stable and positive, even compared year over year to the beginning of last summer. Certainly the economic environment is going to be something we need to consider when looking at the numbers this summer, and we know you are feeling it in your restaurants, but we will still take stable over down every single time. 

We hope that as the warm weather continues, so will these 2022 trends. Wishing everyone a great start to the summer season.

Best,
Bo