Click to enlarge.
For those considering opening a new restaurant, there were probably better times in all of recorded history to do so.
March 14, 2014
Restaurant sales growth slows in 2013
“Competition for share of stomach is getting more and more challenging.” - Ron Paul, Technomic’s President
This is not investment advice.
See Also:
Be Honest: Does This Recovery Make Me Look Fat?
Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
Raise the minimum wage and really crush it.
ReplyDeleteRob Dawg,
ReplyDeleteYeah. It would certainly speed up the process.
Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour
San Francisco-based Momentum Machines claim that using Alpha will save a restaurant enough money that it pays for itself in a year, and it enables the restaurant to spend about twice as much on ingredients as they normally would – so they can buy the gourmet stuff. Saving money with Alpha is pretty easy to imagine. You don’t even need cashiers or servers. Customers could just punch in their order, pay, and wait at a dispensing window.
But does it spit in your special sauce when it is having a bad day?
ReplyDeleteRob Dawg,
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of things it can't do.
I go to In N Out occasionally, and seeing them pay ~10 people $10/hr to produce burgers, fries, and shakes is pretty ridiculous I suppose.
ReplyDeleteThe fry-making could be easily automated, as could the burger making. As could the shakes.
The throughput could be increased too, especially if they moved to the smashed patty technique.
I'd not spent any thought on this prospect before, but, yeah, I can see the burgers going lights-out manufacturing next decade maybe.
But we've got a surplus of young folk still, so mebbe it's for the Japanese to perfect.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=w3d
one of my favorite FRED graphs. So weirdly coordinated.
Oh, and http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
ReplyDeleteFarewell tour, reunion tour, farewell tour, reunion tour.
ReplyDeleteBehold the business (re)cycle!
Paper today says 1 in 5 California students qualifies for college.
ReplyDeleteLess ag, less mfg, no professional work, less restaurant, less automobile sector, less retail.
But more people. I see LA 1992 coming to a town near you. Well, not WA I hope, since I want to move up there. Love all the trees!
^ hispanic / black is 1/5. General rate is more like 1 in 3.
ReplyDeleteTroy,
ReplyDeleteone of my favorite FRED graphs. So weirdly coordinated.
Wow! That chart is amazing! It's going to take some serious effort to explain any of it, without resorting to demonic possession theories of course, lol.
mab,
ReplyDeleteBehold the business (re)cycle!
It wood appear to be highly corrugated! The Fed may need to start thinking outside the cardboard box lest their plan to thwart deflation becomes aluminum foiled!