Restaurant industry sales fall 10.3% during November: Black Box Renewed restrictions, restaurant avoidance, coronavirus surge converge By Eric Nomis
November restaurant industry comp(arable) sales decreased 10.3 percent from last year. Comp traffic also dropped 16.3 percent, according to new data released by dataanalytics firm Black Box Intelligence. Comp sales results are down nearly 3 percentagepoints from October, when the industry posted a 7.5 percent decrease from last year. Starting with May’s sales results, each month had been sequentially better as 2020 progressed. November also marked the worst decline since the month of August, noted Black Box, when comp sales dropped 12.3 percent from last year. Downward pressure on the recovery has come in the form of the worst weeks of the pandemic and renewed restrictions and shutdowns by states. There are also signs that consumers are hunkering down for the winter, reluctant to expose themselves to local, general populations in which the virus, as a RESTAURANT C-SUITE | Restaurant news that’s fresh, informed, inspired (by you) 6